What if Softimage died?

Mathaeus · Post by **Mathaeus** » 28 Oct 2013, 21:03

angus_davidson wrote:You do have to remember that not everyone is interested in ICE for their workflow. Also people tend to be very set in their ways. The order of operations way of rigging is fairly easy for people just starting out to understand and maintain. I am not saying things are where they need to be just yet. Not by a long shot.

I do have understand that not everyone is interested in ICE for their workflow. To rephrase what I said, the problem in Modo is a lot of tools, even more complicated than ICE, like that OOO thing. I can only understand it as something intentionally made for needs of exact Maya studio - with nice try to sell it as something that average user needs. But they don't.

Bullit · Post by **Bullit** » 28 Oct 2013, 23:15

so we could surmise that not everyone is super excited to switch to Modo for modelling.

Super excited is too much, but when that Mesh Fusion appears what i saw will make me try it for certainly.
Modo caters from typical Subds to Product Design functionalities.
Maya, Softimage doesn't. Are generic and less powerful in this.

luceric · Post by **luceric** » 29 Oct 2013, 12:36

Bullit wrote:
so we could surmise that not everyone is super excited to switch to Modo for modelling.
Super excited is too much, but when that Mesh Fusion appears what i saw will make me try it for certainly.
Modo caters from typical Subds to Product Design functionalities.
Maya, Softimage doesn't. Are generic and less powerful in this.

just to clarify for people who do not know : Mesh Fusion is a unreleased third party modo plugin by Braids Arts Labs.

angus_davidson · Post by **angus_davidson** » 29 Oct 2013, 13:03

When they demoed mesh fusion at the Modo roadshow the excitement off the scale and copious amounts of swearwords were heard. Been a long time since I saw that kind of excitement at a tech demo.

The expanding the ecosystem webinar where I first saw the mesh fusion stuff

Lord Futzi Voldemort · Post by **Lord Futzi Voldemort** » 29 Oct 2013, 13:07

In fact if you try to work with modo a bit you get a sense of what maya/lw users must have been missing in their home application to get so exited with modo. If your home application is Si, you'll get a sense of what you miss in modo ;). Anyway, modo is still the most promising tool out there for an allrounder and everything depends on how much the foundry will listen. Funny however, if you browse the modo forum, you will find users requesting the same stuff as users of other software. Mostly usability, for example getting rid of vertical tabs or nodebased shader editing.

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 29 Oct 2013, 13:33

At the moment I'm a student and I have demo'ed and played with all software to decide what to focus (Max, Maya, SI, C4D, Modo and LW). Don't mention Blender, that one drove me crazy.

What I like the most is Softimage, from all of the possibilities. But I also want to work with 3D, maybe open a company in the future, I do not know. But how can I choose Max or Softimage if there's no clear path (I think Max users suffers like Softimage users right now).

I'm learning Maya and Cinema 4D just because one may one day lead me to work in the FX industry and the other one makes it easier to be a CG Generalist for advertisement and companies. Maya and Cinema 4D doesn't have a road map, but the releases, the things added, etc, they all point or show a software that IS going to be developed in the future.

As for Modo, I actually didn't like the software that much. Call it a user preference. As I never liked Mac OS or Final Cut. Preferences.

I would gladly trade Cinema 4D for Softimage in the "student pipeline" as I know that once I learn ICE, I'll have more power than the MoGraph module, SI have great animation capabilities, Arnold and a connection to Maya. If the world was perfect, I would study Softimage as the main app and Maya for FX only. But since it isn't, I have to study Maya for everything and Cinema 4D for Motion Graphics and pretty logo/sphere render.

angus_davidson · Post by **angus_davidson** » 29 Oct 2013, 14:47

gonebadfx wrote: I'm learning Maya and Cinema 4D just because one may one day lead me to work in the FX industry and the other one makes it easier to be a CG Generalist for advertisement and companies. Maya and Cinema 4D doesn't have a road map, but the releases, the things added, etc, they all point or show a software that IS going to be developed in the future.

And that is the major point. Both of those are actively being developed

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 29 Oct 2013, 17:08

The new 3ds Max PM just posted on the MU forums.

http://www.maxunderground.com/archives/ ... mmentnum15

One thing that I admire from 3ds Max users is that they unite and they fight. At least enough so the PM appears to say something. I remember in the beginning of the year that a new PM from Softimage popped up in here ... but know he's gone as the PM and nobody else never showed.

I'm off to see the new video of crowd creation (at least the channel is being updated).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2OXY9R78mI

NNois · Post by **NNois** » 29 Oct 2013, 17:23

no, no, we've been heard !!!! 2 Softimage video in 1 day, two https://www.facebook.com/AutodeskME
;)

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 29 Oct 2013, 17:33

NNois wrote:no, no, we've been heard !!!! 2 Softimage video in 1 day, two https://www.facebook.com/AutodeskME
;)

At least some intern is being put to work on something for us and new users! I guess it's better than nothing.

myara · Post by **myara** » 29 Oct 2013, 18:35

If you are going to become a modeler, chances are you may be able to use Softimage or whatever even if they are discontinued as long as you know the workflow to make it work with Maya, which will probably be the main tool in the pipeline.

I work with Maya from time to time but since it is a PITA to work with and has a really slow and clumsy workflow I do everything I can in SI before sending it to Maya.

Modo is at least trying to improve modeling tools and workflow, you may like it or not, but they are trying. AD's big 3 haven't improved much in these areas in the last 5 years or even more. I don't think it will ever be a serious competition to Maya as a platform, but it's becoming a very good alternative as a modeling tool. I know a few people that work with Modo as their main modeling tool independently of the final format.

With animation and VFX it gets a little more complicated but AD seems to be trying to make it a little easier so SI may survive as another tool in the Maya pipeline.

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 29 Oct 2013, 18:42

My idea is to be a cg generalist (all sorts of work) and on the other end try to specialize in FX (Maya). I do want someday to work on a feature film doing FX, but that's not something I would sacrifice myself (financial wise) for it. I already did that to work as PA, Editor, etc, and it wasn't nice.

I have some ideas for some short-film that would be "easy" to produce/create also.

I guess maybe a Softimage + Maya pipeline would work better than a Cinema 4D + Maya. At least it would be cheaper.

--- EDIT ---

For those who said about the Modo + Maya pipeline, I'm watching this video right now and enjoying it. Very cool work from the studio.

Nizar · Post by **Nizar** » 29 Oct 2013, 21:54

Modo like great modeller is, IMHO, only hype. I don't see any particular reason to use modo instead Softimage or Blender for modelling (the only reason is GoZ), and TBH, softimage and even blender are more fast and workflow wise. Modo is convulsed, and I think is a step foward only for LW or Maya users. If you are not experienced in modo (I struggle a lot with modo, customizing it and force myself into his interface and strange workflow) can watch some modelling video on youtube, you can only agree about the fact modo has nothing special (and in many task is step back compared to softimage modelling tools), a continuous mouse move and click back and forward upon interface, window and meshes. The only big thing in modo is render engine, really fast, with a great preview window and I find also shader tree enjoyable.

Foundry trying to streamlining workflow, and in release 701 I see many solution for improving workflow but at the moment, excluding Rendering (for my need) Softiamge and even Blender are better. 801 is the first release totally under Foundry, we will see what they will doing.

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 30 Oct 2013, 02:19

Well, you can always use MOMA and render your Maya scenes in Modo or with Modo inside Maya (confusing?).

http://www.jacobobarreiro.com/jweb/moma/

Anyway, anybody saw this? Looks like a super FX movie. The effects are really nice. And as always, a Maya interface always pop-up!

Today I decided to open Softimage again and play with the standard scenes that comes with it. There's some incredible (in my opinion) fire and smoke simulations in there. Way more capable that 3ds Max or Cinema 4D (standard and without plugins).

Now ... it's nice to know that Softimage workflow is better than a Modo one for modeling. But as the video on the Foundry shows, I guess the thing that most inspire them to use it was the Render and the free nodes.

-- EDIT --

Does any of you guys use Softimage for Advertisement work? I mean logo, product shots, etc?

I know Maya is a pain in the *ss to make this kind of stuff. In C4D you can make in 1/5 of the time with some plugins (fast results with textures, lighting) with the GreyScaleGorilla plugins or the RenderKing plugins (it looks great).

How does Softimage handles this? If handles? In motion graphics and Tim Borgman, we know Softimage kicks ass!

Pooby · Post by **Pooby** » 30 Oct 2013, 09:55

@Lord Futzi Voldemort

I love your quote!

Lord Futzi Voldemort · Post by **Lord Futzi Voldemort** » 30 Oct 2013, 13:14

gonebadfx wrote: Does any of you guys use Softimage for Advertisement work? I mean logo, product shots, etc?

I know Maya is a pain in the *ss to make this kind of stuff. In C4D you can make in 1/5 of the time with some plugins (fast results with textures, lighting) with the GreyScaleGorilla plugins or the RenderKing plugins (it looks great).

How does Softimage handles this? If handles? In motion graphics and Tim Borgman, we know Softimage kicks ass!

I do. I use Softimage in virtually any project I'm involved in. I work for companies that use all shades of software from LW to C4d. I always have my homelicense on the Laptop and do most of the modelling there, but also mesh fixing, UVs and particle stuff. That involves CAD conversion, product shots and, if I do projects on my own, shading animation and rendering of course.
Therefore I was very exited about the send to function, which is broken in 2014, because you can use max and maya as a plugin for Si ( ;) ). I even ported complete animations from maya to SI to get rid of all the workarounds there and reshaded it in Si which made the projects twice as easy to handle.

What if Softimage died?

Softimage is unofficially dead what would you do ?

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