WTF??? Autodesk snubs Softimage in GDC schedule!

[TwinSnakes007]

Nah, this is a joke.......right?

Yeah, it's a joke. I mean, no way that's true.

[owei]

...Yes...I think so..but, you´ll never know..perhaps luceric is authorized to talk about "top secret" strategy plans of AD here in our little forum ;)

[gustavoeb]

so which one is it?

[owei]

99,9% for the first option, just to show us, how paranoid we are..
00,1% for the second option, just to show the importance of our little forum

[SreckoM]

Well it is not that top secret. Everyone knows about XBR for 3dsMax, and new stuff in Maya like Qt UI, Viewport 2.0, Node Editor (which should be ICE equivalent?) ....

[Pooby]

Why would it not be true?

Maya is the industry standard, that most pipelines are built around. Why would they not want to make it as good as they can?
To be honest, if they make Maya better to use than XSI then it's not such a big deal. I wouldn't worry about being forced to use an app that an improvement on my current one.
What I don't want is to have to use one that's going to limit my creativity and speed. like Maya would for me right now.
If they stopped developing xsi tomorrow, I'd be ok with still using it for years. I could still develop my own deformers and tools with ICE, so the product wouldn't be at a standstill.
Hopefully by the time I reached the Limits of ICE, AD would have come up with a decent alternative.

[bottleofram]

Sure there is a next gen platform, it's called Maya.. and they're pouring millions of dollar of R&D in it.. They're componentizing it, revamping it, gradually replace parts of it with the new (they already re-wrote the UI in QT two years ago, for example), taking the best ideas from the other apps, etc. It's going to take a few years to see all the bits of the transformation coming together. There is no need scrap everything and start new, especially when the platform already give you a lot of what you need

Obviously, none of it is news to anyone. However, using a construct 'next gen' (no matter how undefined it may be) implies a couple of things...

Not sure where you were going with this but if its a joke, its a bad one. No need to take a dig at people when they are being concerned.

[Nizar]

Why would it not be true?

Maya is the industry standard, that most pipelines are built around. Why would they not want to make it as good as they can?
To be honest, if they make Maya better to use than XSI then it's not such a big deal. I wouldn't worry about being forced to use an app that an improvement on my current one.
What I don't want is to have to use one that's going to limit my creativity and speed. like Maya would for me right now.
If they stopped developing xsi tomorrow, I'd be ok with still using it for years. I could still develop my own deformers and tools with ICE, so the product wouldn't be at a standstill.
Hopefully by the time I reached the Limits of ICE, AD would have come up with a decent alternative.

IMO, no, it is not possible. Why? Because selling three different application is better than selling only one.

IMO (again), the reason behind AD marketing is relatively simple: push MAYA and 3dsm at their limit, saturation the market, when all have Maya and 3dsm installed, they will push the more modern and flexible (and better) application softimage

Luceric @ ok I make you an offer cannot refuse: you will PM me the truth and I will make for you a date with my beautiful, busty, blond and complacent cousin... Ok?!

[jamination]

I'd be willing to bet that Autodesk would rather be selling one of these products rather than all 3, if they could keep their market share.

[luceric]

Obviously, none of it is news to anyone. However, using a construct 'next gen' (no matter how undefined it may be) implies a couple of things...

Not sure where you were going with this but if its a joke, its a bad one. No need to take a dig at people when they are being concerned.

I wasn't snarky... they are working the Maya platform to transform it into what is considered next generation. The difference are in, for example, how the application would reference assets, how it uses the GPU, etc. XBR is the same thing for Max.
It might be interesting to talk about what you guys think would be considered next-gen...

[Bellsey]

I'm chiming in abit late here, cause I'm on US Western time. There's a lot of points made but I try and keep this post short.

Firstly, guys are still talking about Softimage on the main ADSK website. Seriously and without sounding nasty -drop this, let it go and move on. Its not that it won't ever happen, but it's probably very unlikely. This has been discussed here before and I'll say now what I said then. ADSK has a lot of products, they can't all fit on the main front page. Also there are other products they probably make more money than Max, Maya, and Softimage combined and they don't appear on the main front page either. The ADSK front website page shouldn't really used as some kind of benchmark for marketing.

@owei and geoath - what I said makes perfect sense, times and industries have moved on. As EricT mentions in one of his posts, long terms users/studios (large and small) have their pipelines and tools in place and set. They're not likely to change their core 3D app unless there's some kind of other big contributing factor, especially in the last 3 yrs. Maybe look at it from the other side, taking out the 'what's best debate', if you're a long term Softimage/XSI user/studio with pipelines and tools in place, why don't they just switch to Maya, or even Max? Very probably for the same reasons why Maya and Max guys don't switch, so in some ways its a stale mate. Pushing Softimage to be the main app in some studios, like EricT says, wouldn't work and certainly wouldn't address possible issues that they might have. It's all about integration and pipelines, many users and studios are using more than one package in the pipeline (Autodesk or not), so again Chinny said this in his post to the user list. We can't expect people to replace their main 3D app, but they could integrate Softimage into their studio and pipelines, much like they do with other softwares.
This was what Stig was meaning in his now infamous 'companion' quote when referring to Softimage, but it sadly didn't come out like that. You could equally apply the 'companion' tag to Max/Maya in the context of Softimage. More importantly though, it applies to Suites.

Kzin makes a good point about marketing, Max/Maya isn't pushed any more than software, though it perhaps does look like that and certainly in the past. I work with our marketing people all the time, and I don't hear about specific Max/Maya marketing campaigns. Instead its about general campaigns around industries, pipelines and /or Suites. This better because it allows us to push and mention all the relevent products. Same goes for sales as well, I've never been told not to mention Softimage in any meeting or event I have done. In fact what I say above, its actually more important that we show more Softimage, and we try to, wherever possible.

[myara]

We are not complaining about how Max and Maya are being marketed, we complain that SI doesn't. And we complain because if SI doesn't sell, SI projects won't come and our favorite 3D platform SI will get shut down.

So that's it, the next gen platform is Maya and eventually Sotimage will get shut down. Well, deep inside we all knew it since Autodesk bought Softimage because unlike Nizar, I think is more logical to invest your resources in only one application rather than divide it into three very similar applications.

Now it's kinda sad that the next-gen platform would be Maya and not a new one because right now, I find it very clumsy to work in. I do it because I have to. Ok, the viewer is impressive and the GUI is better than before but that's it. There are very, very few features from Maya that I would like to have in SI. So I just want Softimage to survive a little more until they do something decent with Maya.

Go and make something impressive with Softimage ! is not always an option since small studios like where I work can't do many original projects, and have to adapt to the bigger one specs. The same with CG freelancers. And if Autodesk doesn't do something about it (and I know they won't), more and more Maya only projects will come until Autodesk decides that it just doesn't worth the effort to keep Softimage development as an standalone software and make it a Maya-Max ICE plugin.

[owei]

..OK...so Maya get´s the next gen tool? How sad is that? So we all are riding on an already dead horse? No more talking like "The future is bright for Softimage..!"...???
Well, if Maya becomes the "platform", this is not a choice of quality. Installed base is what counts then. Nothing else. Got the point. Must be frustrating for you Softimage guys out there? Never read of this so clearly, so I am surprised, indeed. So all the talking and trying to find reasons for not marketing Soft becomes quite clear now. The simple reason: Softimage will die...
I should close this site then asap..it doesen´t make sense anymore...and supporting Softimage is and was wasted time...what a pity ;)

[bottleofram]

Bellsey, couple of questions:

Firstly, does this proposition (use maya/max as a main platform, softimage as an accessory) have decisive role in their respective developments? Meaning, will softimage continue to strongly emphasize areas that are sorely lacking in the other two?

Secondly, you say suits could easily be seen as 2 softimage packages with max or maya as accessories. Why arent we seeing an effort to make softimage user comfortable in those two then? I think i speak in the name of all softies who have been forced to work with either max or maya when i say i do not appreciate being both thrown into an environment i clearly do not have high opinion of, and having to adjust how i navigate in my preferred one just so i can have some consistency.

And finally, is the sum of softimage seats in large studios bigger than that of smaller to midsized ones combined? Its a very flimsy question, because, how do you decide where to draw a line between large and midsized, but i know you cannot talk of specific numbers so being accurate is not really an option here. The roughest possible guess would clear some things out. Mainly why are we always talking of converting people/studios, making them "see the light", when we all know users are very, VERY unlikely to do so after years of experience with the other package. Why take a fruitless road when so many new seats are being bought every year? Not to mention that from the business standpoint, it makes no sense to "convert", so lets drop that. I'd just like to know how is anyone who have taken an invested interest in softimage to feel assured knowing its userbase is being hindered and solely dependent on how many studios buy into this suits idea.

I fully expect to be accused of being too simplistic, but there's really nothing complicated about how ADSK seems to perceive this whole situation.

[SreckoM]

So why did AD bought SI, just to keep it low profile until they transit 2 titans to next-gen app?

And I agree with bottleofram on converting people. Is that only strategy you can go with? Why do not you try to attack new seats that Maya gets every year? At least ones that are entering CG industry, I do not see any marketing efforts on that side either. As a matter a affect latest change price is directly against that strategy. But I guess we all know answer to that question....

[Hirazi Blue]

Ah, well: "We'll always have Paris."

(before someone asks: famous quote from the movie Casablanca)