Softimage EOL articles

[Hirazi Blue]

The apparent lack of any forceful response to Softimage's early retirement that could've been heard outside of the community itself
had nothing to do with the size of the user base IMHO...

[FXDude]

You can pick any of the *many* CGSociety pages in the EOL thread (or any of the *many* pages over at either Foundry, Blender, C4D café, ... or any site even remotely related to CG ) and find a pretty overwhelming amount of both disapproval and sympathy.

But if SI's -actual- lifespan would be as long(a decade?) as it would continue to outperform what's out there (by a considerable margin) , it would be because of us,
as much as it would be if it didn't go as far.

[MauricioPC]

The thing that most caught my eye from the EOL was Brad Peebler talk about it. We all know that those who have used Softimage knows what a big mistake AD was doing ... but his 'tale' on the relationship he had with Softimage was a nice read.

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discu ... 630&page=0

I don't know if Modo will ever be a Softimage, but I like this guy.

[FXDude]

...
Anyway, long story short, the news of Softimage EOL (end of life) was actually strangely tough for me.

As always, I want to be as transparent as possible so I'm not going to lie.

Of course it is also a huge gift for MODO as we know that there are many, many very angry 3D artists out there who are now looking at MODO as a viable enhancement to their pipeline.

I've spent time this week thinking of how best to capture those angry users and turn them into happy MODO users. Can I leverage the spite they feel towards autodesk to move them to MODO? Then I feel guilty. That's why I'm telling you all this. I need to be clear of conscience. As an artist I'm so sorry XSI is dead. As a capitalist I celebrate this colossal blunder from my competitor. As a podcaster (is that a word?) I'm a bit tongue tied because of this internal conflict.

Then let's reach out to those people and sell them a site license of MODO. I can't stop myself! But at least I'm honest about it. There must be some value to that...

I guess there is some merit in admitting seeing opportunity in SI's official EOL, but I honestly wasn't very fond of that part.

But I don't think takes away how good a person he is, which I very much think is also the case, & somehow everyone has to sell at least a little bit.

[Hirazi Blue]

You can pick any of the *many* CGSociety pages in the EOL thread (or any of the *many* pages over at either Foundry, Blender, C4D café, ... or any site even remotely related to CG ) and find a pretty overwhelming amount of both disapproval and sympathy.

True, but not exactly what I meant. Threads of disapproval and sympathy are basically what's to be expected of forums anyway in any situation. ;)

[Mathaeus]

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.

Well, when we are about postal stamps and French stamp from last year, perhaps we should ask the girls to to something for Softimage cause. At least, we will get more publicity. But, I'm afraid the our case is not really important for their careers...

More serious, I think the only CG news that got significant publicity in last time, where I am ( local national TV, at least), it was bankruptcy of Oscar winner, who made movie with artificial tiger into the boat. Sad news, and significant by self. Long time ago it was Microsoft and Steve Jobs to help Softimage and Pixar, when they were in trouble. Today, no one big player jumped in, to help the winner of Oscar. "Time of fascination" is over.

Regrading articles about CG, I think there's yet another problem. For unknown reason, these articles are still in that 'fascination mode'. Comparable to articles about breaking the sound barrier from '50s, or landing on Moon from '70s. Almost the same pattern. Meaningless comparisons of numbers aimed to fascinate ( when we unroll this thing, it's longer than... or, we were able to load this 400 Mb in two seconds) - so what with this. Top secret all around. Workflows, looking like nothing else than huge chain of trials and errors, and arbitrary decisions coming form nowhere: "we captured the human face, then we added 260 facial joints and 230 corrective facial blend shapes" - so what with this crap, again. I'd expect some cool solver, available for sale in future, but no, they again want to slap me with their 'power', mainly based on slavery work. In short, nothing or little, usable for people in everyday life. So, nothing strange, if average user of 3ds Max recognizes only the particular tree generator plugin, in whole 'fascinating' story about Elysium movie, as this is only useful info.
There are positive exceptions, like 'revolutionary Dreamworks animation sofware', where they showing a real effort to change the game, but this is exception. That is, I have to admit that I do not reading most of these articles - even it is about Softimage (positive or negative, doesn't matter).

[FXDude]

"we captured the human face, then we added 260 facial joints and 230 corrective facial blend shapes"

lol!

[Mathaeus]

"we captured the human face, then we added 260 facial joints and 230 corrective facial blend shapes"

lol!

got this from thread about unreal engine: To be fair, result is looking nice, but archaic envelope+shape keys method over capture, no comment

Crytek actually have a very interesting alembic pipeline that they used on Ryse. http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-tech-of-cryteks-ryse-son-of-rome/

The complex characters and other parts of the game requiring complex simulations, such as collapsing structures, benefited from Crytek’s new GeomCache pipeline. This was written by the studio and compiles from Alembic.

[iamVFX]

So, nothing strange, if average user of 3ds Max recognizes only the particular tree generator plugin, in whole 'fascinating' story about Elysium movie, as this is only useful info.

Here's another usefull info for you about this story: ImageEngine, the company behind Elysium and District 9 visual effects, might be the real game changer for the industry in the next few years.

Unlike any other VFX studio out there, these guys developing two open source projects called Cortex and Gaffer. In short: you can use it to make plugins which could be written once and exported to Maya or Houdini, or imagine as if Fabric Engine had node based workflow right now and you could embed it in your standalone application which you can share with community freely - this is what Cortex and Gaffer are about.

I understand that these projects won't be any helpful at this stage for an "average 3ds Max user", but for people who make software for visual effects it is fascinating what ImageEngine guys are doing right now. Don't talk shit about them.

[Mathaeus]

I understand that these projects won't be any helpful at this stage for an "average 3ds Max user", but for people who make software for visual effects it is fascinating what ImageEngine guys are doing right now. Don't talk shit about them.

Generally, wanted to say something, how to make the SI EOL story, to be interesting for wider audience, where 3ds Max user, or Cinema 4d user, is only the first next stage, final goal could be something comparable to discussion in parliament. Typical article about FX won't be useful, I'm afraid. Not only because of supplied technical details, understandable for too small number of people. Even we are able to understand, it seems that everyone ( of 'us') tries to stick to unbelievable particular, personal part of entire story. Me too. Give anything better than shape keys to me, bitch, and I'll forget everything else.
Tried to tell something about style of these articles as well, as style is first recognizable part for everyone. Also, bad style is first proven repellent.

Anyway, demystification of CG story seems to go further: (got this from Modo forums)
Wage-Fixing Scandal, part 1
Wage-Fixing Scandal, part 2
Wage-Fixing Scandal, part 3

[iamVFX]

Generally, wanted to say something, how to make the SI EOL story, to be interesting for wider audience

You can't, 3D creation software packages are boring right now. Go try to open any DCC application in front of a normal person who haven't dealt with 3D before - they'll be shocked by the unnecessary complexity which will unfold in front of them. Not to mention articles or any material that discuss such complex software - average person will die from boredom reading them.

[McNistor]

the unnecessary complexity

Yeah, no.
Of course there are some programs with a well thought workflow (Softimage) and others with a not-so-well designed workflow (Maya), but overall you can't make 3d with two buttons.
If you "develop" it (I call it dumb it down) so that the user has to click a few buttons then you're not really offering much power to that user, are you?
If complexity is an inherent property of our reality then how can one expect a "reality simulator" to be simple?

[Mathaeus]

Guys your pessimism is sooo disappointing....... I meant, more exactly, "how to convince a people, who aren't users of any 3d app, that SI EOL case is bad for them, too" , NOT to make them SI users. Long time ago, this worked.

[McNistor]

Guys your pessimism is sooo disappointing.......

It started the day Autowreck acquired Softimage.

[FXDude]

got this from thread about unreal engine: To be fair, result is looking nice, but archaic envelope+shape keys method over capture, no comment

Crytek actually have a very interesting alembic pipeline that they used on Ryse. http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-tech-of-cryteks-ryse-son-of-rome/

The complex characters and other parts of the game requiring complex simulations, such as collapsing structures, benefited from Crytek’s new GeomCache pipeline. This was written by the studio and compiles from Alembic.

Hum! as you said, the result was nice, but really not enough to justify so much.

Reminds me of 72 hour per (transformers) frame (distributed on an entire industrial (light and magic) farm)

Which means 1 machine would almost never finish 1 frame if you let it go for weeks. (or months?)

Shots are complicated with lots of heavy geo at very hi rez, but that still sounds (way) unnecessary.

(and you will find that almost unlimited resources will tend to do that)


Similary, a pipeline with a bunch of side apps to compensate shortcomings and perhaps add a bit of friendlyness somewhere, with Houdini for FXs, then animating & putting everything together in a (necessarily) heavily modified version of Maya in itself being one of the most convoluted, can make any SI user want to cry.

[Grims]

Just to follow the topic a little bit, this article came out today and is about if 3ds Max is the next EOL. As obvious, Softimage is mentioned...

http://blog.digitaltutors.com/will-3ds-max-die-next/