offical features for softimage 2014 & we have a NEW logo

[DanielGTG]

"Nevertheless, he seems to at least come check-out the pulse every now and then."

I have to admit reading the feedback on this forum has become a bit of an addiction lately; a good one! The comments have been enlightening and at the same time 'exciting' ;)

For anyone here wondering if Softimage 2014 is the right upgrade for them, I would say please try it out when it becomes available and report back your impressions. If you're not on subscription, you can always download the 30 day trial to check it out; all first hand feedback is welcome.

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Thanks,
Daniel

[FXDude]

!

[benoit81]

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Hi Daniel,
Very happy that you are posting in this forum. I think everybody has its own wishlist. We are a small studio (2 licenses of Softimage + 1 3ds max). We are creating interactive 3D content for mobile (mostly iPad) + industrial visualisation. We use Unity & Flash 3D as 3D engine. What we would like is that Softimage improve modeling tools (tweak component tool need to be enhanced for retopo + enhanced snap behaviors) and texturing (rendermap/ultimapper should merge in a reliable way, Texture Editor should be at least as good as 3dsmax or maya ones and faster for heavy meshes). For rendering, I think since softimage has good new third party renderer (we own Maxwell for Softimage + Arion, and we are very impressed by redshift) every materials should have in-ports for each renderer, so we can switch easily from a renderer to another.

Regards,

[SvalinnAsgard]

Daniel,

I personally use Softimage for game development, mostly for the UDK. I am not going to ask for specific features, but please pass this along to Autodesk:

"Listen to your customers."

[angus_davidson]

"Nevertheless, he seems to at least come check-out the pulse every now and then."

I have to admit reading the feedback on this forum has become a bit of an addiction lately; a good one! The comments have been enlightening and at the same time 'exciting' ;)

For anyone here wondering if Softimage 2014 is the right upgrade for them, I would say please try it out when it becomes available and report back your impressions. If you're not on subscription, you can always download the 30 day trial to check it out; all first hand feedback is welcome.

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Thanks,
Daniel

Hi Daniel

If anything else having the PM for SI actively reading the forum has been worth all of the jumping up an down.

We have two major issues teaching 3D (and this is applicable for when we used Maya as well)

a) File management
b) Moving between the Free and EDU versions

One of the things that matters most to me is that we have great difficulty in working between the free and the EDU versions of SI. We are very keen for our students not to use cracked versions of any software and as such we make sure that they all sign up on the students area and download the software from there. While this works great in the first half of the year where the are doing very small projects to learn each area (modelling, texturing, animation and rendering), it all falls apart in the second half.

When going from the free version to the educational version we hit a lot of limitations when it comes time to render projects. If there is any object that has been touched in the free version it disables the batch render in the file on the edu version. This affects both standard batch rendering and working on render farms. This means the students cant make use of the render farm and this severely limits what they can produce in our very cramped course time. Even if you then export out as FBX and back in( which is only about 30% successful) the new scene file is still marked and the limitation imposed.

I fully understand having the limitations on the free version. However you make it incredibly difficult for students to transition from the free version they use at home to the edu version they use at school. This is actively pushing learners to pirate the tools, which I am sure is the last thing you want to do. Note this is for the 2012 versions which also had issues in that the SAP we had in the Lab, had more features then the Free download tool as well which caused a bit of confusion.

On to the other point students really battle with having to deal with multiple versions of file. having shot_01_v01 to v_25 makes for very difficult to always remember where they did what, especially if they are trying to troubleshoot a broken rig etc. Would it not be possible to get some form of interaction with version control. An optional plugin that would allow you to use Mercurial or SVN would be amazing.

[angus_davidson]

Daniel,

I personally use Softimage for game development, mostly for the UDK. I am not going to ask for specific features, but please pass this along to Autodesk:

"Listen to your customers."

Just to add. if you listen but no one knows that you are, then they think that you are not.

I would change that to

"Be seen to listen and interact with your customers"

[t4d]

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Thanks,
Daniel

what we do - Military Animation, Presentations, Training & Simulation

what we want - Value where was the Subscription Advantage Pack for 2013 ?
OK new team sure that's life i think everyone understands.
but why not a third party plugin thrown in the 2014 upgrade to give solid measure of improvement in workflow ?
no Lagoa no Face Robot no Craft Director Studio no UV unwrap etc etc

Dream additions - flume FX or a new render Arnold or Vray

Nice improvement - Facerobot more in the whole rigging workflow ( just rough edges smoothed over )

Things that would help - more ice compounds examples- Car rigs, Different flame and smoke Fx and Explosions, Motion tools like packages

other things - iRay and other mental ray things I HEAR are there but not given users access to

plus tools like - Momentum, ImplosiaFX , Species , mbFeatherTools ,Alembic file format, Naiad fluid simulation

sofitmage is a pretty full and complete package BUT there no way everything has been invented
Paint effect for Sofitmage ? motion builder rig in softimage ? dream to dream =)

and in reference to VALUE please look at the value or features of
2010 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_8.0%29

2011 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_9.0%29
PLUS SAP http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_9.5%29
2012 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_10.0%29
PLUS SAP http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_10.5%29

compared to

2013 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_11.0%29
2014

[Bellsey]

From the looks of it, Autodesk won't have a booth @ Siggraph this summer, down in Anaheim! http://s2013.siggraph.org/sites/default ... -30-12.pdf * Can you confirm, Bellsey/Luceric?

Don't they want to show off their new logos/branding?

* Floor Plan Subject To Change (2/27/13)

Sorry I can't confirm anything, not because of company policy, I simply don't know.
I haven't attended Siggraph for a while, there often isn't a need because we have people more 'local' who can take over any tech duties, so I'm not up to speed on any planning.

I like Pixars position though, a nice straight and direct line for anyone running to get a poster or teapot.

[vrMan]

"Nevertheless, he seems to at least come check-out the pulse every now and then."

I have to admit reading the feedback on this forum has become a bit of an addiction lately; a good one! The comments have been enlightening and at the same time 'exciting' ;)

For anyone here wondering if Softimage 2014 is the right upgrade for them, I would say please try it out when it becomes available and report back your impressions. If you're not on subscription, you can always download the 30 day trial to check it out; all first hand feedback is welcome.

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Thanks,
Daniel

hi daniel , thank u for coming here
we use softimage for VFX / Animation ,
I think the most important shortage in xsi is a Fluid Solver (and also volume shader for render that) like FumeFX or Flipsolver & Pyro FX 2 in Houdini . need a new hair simulate system , show volume shaders in viewport like Maya .

Fluid Simulation with a volume shader is main shortage for me , and also I will be happy to see more features in Simulation & VFX .

[Hirazi Blue]

please look at the value or features of
2010 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_8.0%29

2011 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_9.0%29
PLUS SAP http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... ion_9.5%29
2012 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_10.0%29
PLUS SAP http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_10.5%29

compared to

2013 http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/ind ... on_11.0%29
2014

Looking at those pages from the Softimage Wiki I find it strange (and somewhat funny, I must admit), that the Softimage Wiki was the first place the new features for SI2014 got "announced" unwillingly, but that, now that everything's out in the open, the Softimage Wiki hasn't been updated yet. I do, however, sincerely hope this "Wikileak" won't be what killed the Softimage Wiki off...
;)

[druitre]

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? Thanks,
Daniel

Hi Daniel, great to see your presence here and to know you're following our discussion. I do VFX and work as a freelance 3D generalist for film, television and commercials. For me, what matters is SI as a one-stop, complete production app. Suites and such are of no interest to me, a single subscription to SI is (along with all the other apps I have licenses on) the maximum that I can afford (and run a cost-effective company).

Feature requests for me are about completeness of the package, like volumetrics/voxelisation so I can actually render the particlestuff I create in ICE, and a deeper integration of the internal parts (the texture-editor for instance is like an alien piece of slapped-on code with different logic and workflow to SI).

Oh, and have ICE figure out/deal with differing contexts transparently so I can just use any and all property to drive any and all property in an ICEtree.

(Just some things that pop into my mind directly, it's not to say there aren't lots and lots of things that could be/need to be improved in SI)

anyway, hope you'll continue to visit this forum and if you can post on a frequent basis!

thanks, Jasper

[sonictk]

"Nevertheless, he seems to at least come check-out the pulse every now and then."

I have to admit reading the feedback on this forum has become a bit of an addiction lately; a good one! The comments have been enlightening and at the same time 'exciting' ;)

For anyone here wondering if Softimage 2014 is the right upgrade for them, I would say please try it out when it becomes available and report back your impressions. If you're not on subscription, you can always download the 30 day trial to check it out; all first hand feedback is welcome.

Something I'm hoping to better understand from the community here is what type of work are you producing with Softimage? (e.g Film VFX, games, short-form episodic, etc...) Anything to help give me some context on what matters to you most.

Thanks,
Daniel

Hi, I'm a student using XSI (and trying to convince people to) for modeling/animation:

As an animator:
- Viewport: animation playback performance slow, maybe auto cache playback option?
- synoptic editor: Pan/Zoom functions
- UI: ability to dock PPGs easily
- UI: ability to combine multiple selection filters easily (Nulls + jnts, since most rigs don't standardize their control shape types)
- UI: support for dual monitors with different resolutions (been bugging me for years, my Ultramon solution is not something a lot of people are willing to use)
- Maybe a officially developed version of GEAR...? Right now autorigged bipeds are all the rage, ABAutoRig for Maya http://www.supercrumbly.com/archives.php?sid=173 is hard to get students away from...
- Engine: Set keys on all attributes takes forever on complicated rigs. Performance needs to be improved dramatically, keyframe management performance at the moment is miles behind Maya's.

As a modeler:
- Better HQV viewport, like what most people have said
- Easier ways to deal with non-manifold geometry (auto select all double edges)
- Interactive unfolding/pelt mapping (I keep going back and forth between uvlayout and XSI...Diamant Tools for Maya has a pretty good unfold result)

Also, I don't have as much industry experience as the rest of you guys, so feel free to take my comments with a pinch of salt...but we should totally have a "Small annoying things to fix" forum that we can vote on features to be fixed and keep track of them more easily, similar to the Maya/Mudbox ones as well... http://mudboxfeedback.autodesk.com/foru ... dbox-forum

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

obviously, it cannot psychically produce a viewport prevew of vray shaders.

That wouldn't be needed. a simple phong placeholder with texture would do. Viewport 2.0 handles scenes with vray shaders as you might know. But since AO never worked for me an the overall performance is ridiculous I don't use it anyway. So in 2014 instead of an useless HQV i will have an enhanced useless HQV...

[ace63]

The only things I (still) really want are improved performance with many objects (this totally destroys Softimage - Maya is easily up to more than a thousand times faster) and the ability to set data on group members (ICETree branch mode would be great).

[ojo3D]

Also, I don't have as much industry experience as the rest of you guys, so feel free to take my comments with a pinch of salt...but we should totally have a "Small annoying things to fix" forum that we can vote on features to be fixed and keep track of them more easily, similar to the Maya/Mudbox ones as well... http://mudboxfeedback.autodesk.com/foru ... dbox-forum

This is one of the things that caught my eye in the Unfold event yesterday. 33 small things in Maya fixed, 11 in Mudbox and 10 in Max if I'm not mistaken. We should have something like this for SI.

Other thing I find it would be nice to market is the fact that SI costs $500 less than Max or Maya or even C4D (for an alternative). That almost covers half the price of V-Ray and Maxwell Render. An incredible package with that price tag should sell a lot more. There's no way you can compare that with modo 701 (for an example). Yes, you could afford two licenses of modo, but not the power of SI.

My 2c's.

[Kzin]

Dream additions - ... new render Arnold or Vray

do you really want this? that ad is responsible for arnold or vray integration?
its good like it is with arnold and vray.