What if Softimage died?

gaboraa · Post by **gaboraa** » 27 Feb 2014, 15:47

Still using Autodesk products?

“Time makes more converts than reason.”
― Thomas Paine

FabricPaul · Post by **FabricPaul** » 27 Feb 2014, 15:53

On a personal note, I was quite gutted when I heard the news. It's been coming for years (as soon as a big chunk of the dev team was moved to the games group it was clear Soft was going into maintenance mode) but it's still sad. Partly because Softimage is such a huge part of the VFX industry's history, and partly because of missed opportunity - if Soft development had been maintained at pre-acquisition level, what would ICE be now?

From a Fabric perspective, as long as we have customers using Softimage we will continue to support it. I will post some stuff down the line relating to how Fabric might help, but this isn't the right time.

Cacoman · Post by **Cacoman** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:11

Mootzoid wrote:For what it's worth:
I will continue developing and updating my plugins for Softimage regardless of what Autodesk does.

And I will continue to buy your plugins Eric!

FabricPaul wrote:From a Fabric perspective, as long as we have customers using Softimage we will continue to support it. I will post some stuff down the line relating to how Fabric might help, but this isn't the right time.

This is the way to go.

If you guys keep the steam coming at Softimage, it will be alive regardless of what ADSK does.

druitre · Post by **druitre** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:20

Mootzoid wrote:For what it's worth:
I will continue developing and updating my plugins for Softimage regardless of what Autodesk does.

thanks Eric. Ray of light.

Post by **owei** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:23

@fabricpaul
Indeed, would have been interesting if innovation would have drawn the market for a couple of years instead of being strangled in the cold hands of an monopolist. Good luck to you awesome Fabrics...the best for you, guys!!

I found this press release back from the Softimage acquisition 2008 and it made me laugh out loudly

Petit commented: “As we have demonstrated since the acquisition of Alias in 2006, we’re committed to giving our customers choice when it comes to their 3D tools. We plan to maintain and grow the Softimage product line, and through Autodesk FBX provide better interoperability between Softimage products, 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya. FBX also provides interoperability between Softimage products and our specialized applications such as Autodesk Mudbox, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Autodesk ImageModeler and Autodesk Stitcher, as well as numerous third-party applications.”

Well, AD, you did so incredibly well on this...congrats ;)

And this is the best part...I totally was not aware AD is aware of anything ;)

Petit concluded: “At Autodesk, we care deeply about 3D technology; we know users invest a lot of time and energy into mastering their favorite 3D product. To all 3D artists out there, I want to tell you that we understand your passion for the creative tools you use daily, and that with Autodesk, you can choose your passion.”

quoted from here:http://www.fxguide.com/featured/Autodes ... e_for_35M/

FabricPaul · Post by **FabricPaul** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:34

well Marc is an investor in Fabric and in clara.io, so he can't be all bad ;)

MauricioPC · Post by **MauricioPC** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:38

owei wrote:@fabricpaul
Indeed, would have been interesting if innovation would have drawn the market for a couple of years instead of being strangled in the cold hands of an monopolist. Good luck to you awesome Fabrics...the best for you, guys!!

I found this press release back from the Softimage acquisition 2008 and it made me laugh out loudly

Petit commented: “As we have demonstrated since the acquisition of Alias in 2006, we’re committed to giving our customers choice when it comes to their 3D tools. We plan to maintain and grow the Softimage product line, and through Autodesk FBX provide better interoperability between Softimage products, 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya. FBX also provides interoperability between Softimage products and our specialized applications such as Autodesk Mudbox, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Autodesk ImageModeler and Autodesk Stitcher, as well as numerous third-party applications.”
Well, AD, you did so incredibly well on this...congrats ;)

And this is the best part...I totally was not aware AD is aware of anything ;)
Petit concluded: “At Autodesk, we care deeply about 3D technology; we know users invest a lot of time and energy into mastering their favorite 3D product. To all 3D artists out there, I want to tell you that we understand your passion for the creative tools you use daily, and that with Autodesk, you can choose your passion.”
quoted from here:http://www.fxguide.com/featured/Autodes ... e_for_35M/

If Marc was the owner and all time decision maker of everything, than yes, you could blame him. But he was just another guy in the company. Who knows what happened ... He left 4 years after the acquisition.

He was the head of M&E but he still had to answer to the top chain.

What's important, for me at least, is that we have two major plugin/software developers coming public to say they continue to support Softimage. So I can see Softimage as the best app out there for more 5+ years.

Let's face it ... what Maya improvements were so world changing in these years? Perhaps the Viewport 2.0? Nucleus for dynamics? The modeling toolkit I'm sure it wasn't!

Post by **owei** » 27 Feb 2014, 16:40

@FabricPaul
Nothing against your investor, but the promises made did not come true by far in any concern. I don´t blame Marc in person, I´m sure he believed in his words back in the days...I don´t know what went wrong, but his vision vanished for sure...and here we are now..

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 27 Feb 2014, 17:26

Anyone knows the AD chain of command from the inside? Who are the people that make decisions like this? Did they ever really sit in front of any DCC apps?

From the observable acting, I imagine it more like you would expect from many bigger commercial corporations these days - management is 'abstracted' from the actual products since long, the only authority to answer to are shareholders, and the main goal became the short-term revenue.

Where's the John Lasseter / Pixar, or Steve god rest his soul Jobs / Apple character at AD, if there ever was one?

Was it Warren Buffett who once said he won't deal with things that he don't understand? In that sense, AD should sell Softimage and concentrate on CAD software.

mc_axe · Post by **mc_axe** » 27 Feb 2014, 17:42

sell

NNois · Post by **NNois** » 27 Feb 2014, 17:48

Eugen wrote:Anyone knows the AD chain of command from the inside? Who are the people that make decisions like this? Did they ever really sit in front of any DCC apps?

From the observable acting, I imagine it more like you would expect from many bigger commercial corporations these days - management is 'abstracted' from the actual products since long, the only authority to answer to are shareholders, and the main goal became the short-term revenue.

Where's the John Lasseter / Pixar, or Steve god rest his soul Jobs / Apple character at AD, if there ever was one?

Was it Warren Buffett who once said he won't deal with things that he don't understand? In that sense, AD should sell Softimage and concentrate on CAD software.

are you sure ? opinions at autodesk may are pretty straight about this, for example dev Luc-Eric had already talked here the WHY Softimage is a no-go. There is internal discussion at least...

Nizar · Post by **Nizar** » 27 Feb 2014, 18:58

And if ADSK would like to sell it?
I know they don't sell anything but with an appropriate money offer?

We can try to make a survey trough site like charge.org or similar, collect signature and make a proposal for make softimage open source.

I know softimage users base is small, but many users from different software will be interested in this, even blender users can contribute, softimage open source will be a great resource for every 3d artist.
I know, is something near a dream, but why don't try? the first step, collect a survey for ask this to ADSK don't cost nothing, and doing a indiegogo campaing is also practical free

FabricPaul · Post by **FabricPaul** » 27 Feb 2014, 19:31

I don't want to rain on your parade, but why would Autodesk want to enable a competitor? They acquired Maya and Softimage so that they owned the majority of the 3D market. The premise of stopping Soft would be in part on a transition of users to Maya. If they then sell Softimage (which, without selling developers along with it, would be nigh-on impossible to do) then they are ensuring that those users wouldn't move, and in the future they'd have customers looking at moving to 'new Soft' and away from Maya. There is no business rationale for selling Softimage at all.

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 27 Feb 2014, 19:49

However unrealistic, funny idea... if AD shut down XSI, it's no more money. But If a good part of the userbase chucked a fraction of the fee a license would cost in the hat, whatever, 2000 people, 1000 each, that's 2mio bucks. Better than nothing...
Fantasy, yes.
But then, maybe better pay the Fabric guys to do a modeler and GUI on top with that money, and we are better off... and AD can cram some stuff somewhere.

FabricPaul (you know this is just fooling around), why not start some fundraising yourself for the ultimate-Softimage's-heir-3d application? How much would you need? (don't need to answer... ; )

adrencg · Post by **adrencg** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:15

I'll be using it in 2018, and be better off than the guy using Maya 2018.

FabricPaul · Post by **FabricPaul** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:26

FabricPaul (you know this is just fooling around), why not start some fundraising yourself for the ultimate-Softimage's-heir-3d application?

I thought I already did that ;)

What if Softimage died?

Softimage is unofficially dead what would you do ?

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