softimage 2011 is near.....

[Zafar Iqbal]

(...) but because Mark pointed out one important aspect of the thusly, newly improved Face Robot: it becomes feasible to attempt using it WITHOUT mocap data.

Good job, indeed!

[Hirazi Blue]

I don't know what to make of this, but apparently the new Softimage 2011 comes with a free version of Craft Director Studio... More info can be found here

[Rez007]

Wow..that is pretty awesome. I can't hardly wait until 2011 ships!

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

@pimeto
Hmmm, that sounds a bit harsh...
Looks like a very solid update to me!
The "hero feature", stable/"supported" ICE Kinematics might surprise us all!
And somehow I get the feeling this is a release with updates "all around", not just one feature enhanced, but several main aspects of the software addressed by new features...

I'm going to miss the legacy particles, however...

Seriously dude!!
You nailed it - a solid update - not a final release!
Cmon, now. I dont say that most of the features are not cool but the biggest and most important part of XSi, which makes it "a great addition to maya or 3dsmax" is the crappy old mental ray renderer!
170 new mental ray shaders ? wtf... if you look at it, the new and modern renderers have a couple of shaders that make it all - Vray, Maxwell etc, etc...

They put thousands of shaders, camera shaders and god know what else... and so what ?
I end up learning like for months the god damn renderer, to render a turntable of my model !?
WTF ??? Cmon people, this is the biggest expectation we XSI users need!!!

I hope the guys at Chaos speed up thing with Vray and give us a release this year

You haven´t read the whole new features list, have you?
I really like this new version, because even if I don´t like mentalray very much, the new features make every days work a lot eaysier.
And there is a lot of new functionality, like the shaderediting for example. I feel this is a very autodesk-untypical update, and I´m a big autodesk critic (you can see that I refuse to write autodesk with a capital A... ). With the new lipsynctool even I as a non character specialist am going to use facerobot, wich I otherwise maybe never did, so it adds a whole new value to the package for me. And ICE-Kinematics! This will completely change the way I animate or do setups. Stereoriggs, complex constraining, automation, the possibilities are endless and not only for characteranimation. Then consider the changes under the hood, always very improtant for thirdparties who make tools and plugins or renderes, the only things by the way, that make 3ds max so "great". Even Vray will get benefits from this "update". So, I consider this an new version, not only an update.
And if you ever work with all the three autodesk 3d apps side by side, what I do quite regularly, you would never ever say Softimage doesn´t work.

regards
achim

[Hirazi Blue]

Autodesk is gearing up for the upcoming release of Softimage 2011, placing two pdf-files online

2011 brochure
Quoting Phil Taylor on the awesomeness of ICE Kinematics sounds a bit strange, as he himself seemed to have played an important part in its (early) development...

Top reasons to buy
The number one reason to buy Softimage: "A Powerful Companion to Maya". /

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

The number one reason to buy Softimage: "A Powerful Companion to Maya". /

Yeah - thats exactly what maya needs: a powerful companion. ;) glad they admit it eventually...

achim

[Hirazi Blue]

Yeah - thats exactly what maya needs: a powerful companion. ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Stephen Blair has added this post to his blog concerning the Craft Director Tools.
Still leaves some questions unanswered, obviously, but it's better than no info at all... ;)

[dwigfor]

Very cool. Thx for the link.

[slayczar]

Here is an email I sent to softimage regarding the future of the product on 9/16/2010:

Dear Brittany,

Thank you for reading this message.

It may or may not be fully clear that there are concerns regarding the acquisition of Softimage by Autodesk and the future of the product. The lack of its presence from the Autodesk top level product list at www.autodesk.com as well as Stig Gruman’s quote regarding Softimage as a “great addition to Maya or 3ds Max pipelines…” leaves the impression that Autodesk is throttling-down development interest in the product and is planning a (seemingly imminent) phasing out of it altogether.

Is there a statement that you could provide to the large community of Softimage users that the product will continue to be developed and supported, or is the lack of its verbosity an omen?

Sincerely Yours,
Caesar Hernandez


And here was her response on 9/17/2010:

Hi Caesar,

Thanks for your email. I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I will be sending you an official statement that can be shared with the community shortly. I don’t manage PR for Softimage, so I’m not the best person to answer your questions. Unfortunately those who work on the Softimage communications team are on post-IBC vacation until next week.

I do know for sure that Autodesk is committed to the continued development of Softimage, but I will send you a better answer that addresses your specific questions early next week.

Have a great weekend!

Kind Regards,
Brittany



Brittany Bonhomme
Public Relations Manager

I have not received anything else from Autodesk but will post here when I get something.

~C

[steven07]

Be very interesting to see what they say. Keep us posted!

[Bellsey]

It will be interesting, because I'm not sure what you are expecting from a reply, that hasn't already been said by Luc-eric, Chinny, Maurice and myself, in this forum and others. We kinda going round in circles really.

[slayczar]

Contrary to what you may believe, not everyone reads every single post (as was proven by the reply to my post). So why don't you enlighten us again as to the official postion of Softimage.

Thanks

[slayczar]

Correction * official position of Autodesk (still can't get used to that)

[xsisupport]

Contrary to what you may believe, not everyone reads every single post (as was proven by the reply to my post). So why don't you enlighten us again as to the official postion of Softimage.

Thanks

A Softimage message

[Hirazi Blue]

an official statement that can be shared with the community shortly

Looking forward to it, an official statement written by a public relations manager will probably/hopefully at least sound better than the increasingly irritable (perhaps understandably so) rebuttals of all these silly rumors we've gotten so far, even if it's content won't ultimately differ from these rebuttals...