What if Softimage died?

luceric · Post by **luceric** » 27 Sep 2013, 12:31

owei wrote:2 years to see all the 3rd party Soft developers vanished? Well, maybe they are more about making a living and have a small revenue..? AD tries to squeeze the citron and get as much revenue out of it as possible. That might not be the correct strategy in nower times. So I guess, 3rd party developer for Soft are smarter...even as long as AD does not it´s job, but asking money for it. So people could start giving their money from the subscription to 3rd party developers instead to AD, because there might be a bigger value for the customer...

no that's fine, I meant whether there would be developers creating new plug ins for new APIs that would be available in two years. you'd have to be on subscription to use those plug-ins. sorry for the confusion.

Lord Futzi Voldemort · Post by **Lord Futzi Voldemort** » 27 Sep 2013, 12:57

Bellsey wrote:
Eugen wrote:We are discussing, aren't we.

Shouldn't you AD guys know best how Soft, given it got specialized on something, could fit in your portfolio? What's your suggestion, then?
ICE? Isn't that what you are doing already anyway? Why ask? Are we talking 'particle plugin' again?

Soft is used in many different places, because it is a general purpose 3D application. Set a (strong) focus on no matter what, and loose part of your user base in the mid-term. What, is totally up to you.

And what if you boiled it down to whatever you see fit, will you then happily continue it, longer than you are planning now?
This isn't about us though, As I said, (ADSK hat off), I'm not asking in any official capacity. I guess I'm perhaps trying to turn the tables a little, as you guys are always quick to offer opinions to us, so I'm just asking - ok, what would you do? There's no right or wrong answer here, I'm just throwing it out there.

@Hirazi - I guess I'm meaning both things really. If someone said, for example Film/TV, would it be more TV for film. And something like TV can break down into commercials, vfx, motion graphics. As could film. I guess a better way to put it, would be an area of speciality to facilitate a market.

Why not just advertise SI as the cg entry tool. You know, for freelancers and small studios who otherwise are drawn to modo or cinema.
With a claim like "Everything you need to start your own business" because that is in fact what it is. You can cover a whole spectrum - to a certain point. If you the decide to go film, upgrade to a maya suite and hire a td. If you decide to go game or archviz upgrade to a max suite and buy a lot of plugins. The only problem here is, that the other two need their specialization too first. So potential buyers can chose their path confidently. And that's where AD has always been indecisive in the past and still is for all that matters.
Anyway that would be nothing than a marketing and image strategy, but one that could turn out as a win for everyone. The only catch is AD's aimlessness. As always.

Falam · Post by **Falam** » 27 Sep 2013, 13:34

If Autodesk were to put Softimage in the grave, they should OpenSource it. What I love about Softimage is how active it is. The poll shows that more then half adore Softimage, that is very positive news. What is needed is a Autodesk Exec to give us some insight, or a shareholder. There is no immediate death of Softimage, Softimage 2015 will be released, what about the future ?

angus_davidson · Post by **angus_davidson** » 27 Sep 2013, 16:58

Falam wrote:If Autodesk were to put Softimage in the grave, they should OpenSource it. What I love about Softimage is how active it is. The poll shows that more then half adore Softimage, that is very positive news. What is needed is a Autodesk Exec to give us some insight, or a shareholder. There is no immediate death of Softimage, Softimage 2015 will be released, what about the future ?

Sadly that wouldn't make commercial sense. A Softimage that was being actively developed on a grander scale then the Singapore team is able to do would quickly become a much greater threat to Maya. No sane business would allow that to happen. We are very much in an age where even if you have just bought a company and say that nothings gonna change , most of the time that product is dead within a year. if Softimage is ever retired it will be with no real notice.

To give you some examples, we were still busy trying to place an apple shake order when it got killed. The re sellers only found out when their request got booted back to them. We had the same thing when we switched to SI from Maya. When we placed the order they were not Autodesk. When it got processed it came back on an Autodesk letter head.

On your last point I have been in Beta's for software that was in Gold release and still got cancelled. So the presence of a 2015 beta doesnt necessarily mean there will be a 2015 release. It is of course a more hopeful sign then there not being a 2015 beta though ;)

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 27 Sep 2013, 17:08

Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:The only problem here is, that the other two need their specialization too first.

The idea follows, Soft somehow feels like the most allroundish of the threesome, and it has the most approachable UI, but of course it's hard to put labels on applications that are similar in so many ways (which of course is the dilemma).

Maya: studios, high-end stuff, Max: archvis - but can you imagine the uproar of all the non-archivs Max users? AD will have to send the riot control...
Still, they have the advantage of this army of 3rd party devs, and an open architecture. This should help getting along, as it did all the time.

angus_davidson · Post by **angus_davidson** » 27 Sep 2013, 17:16

The 3dsmax guys are in a similar boat. However they have an easier time because of all of the plug-in devs that make it more usable. Cant be easy though to see an ex max plugin being re-purposed to a maya LT feature (shader FX) after the developer started working for AD$K.

Dwindleflip · Post by **Dwindleflip** » 27 Sep 2013, 17:46

It's already dead

I love it but lets be honest.

Hirazi Blue · Post by **Hirazi Blue** » 27 Sep 2013, 19:18

In hindsight, can't we just return to being a "perfect companion to Maya"?
Looking at our current situation: that did have a comfortable, cosy ring to it...

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 27 Sep 2013, 20:35

We could hack the AD servers, steal the sourcecode and flee to... no, better not Singapore...

Hirazi Blue · Post by **Hirazi Blue** » 27 Sep 2013, 20:37

I agree, we need a "like" button...

pezetko · Post by **pezetko** » 27 Sep 2013, 22:06

Kill it.

Fix the most horrible bugs. Fix the Send To Maya (and in Maya) Send To Softimage. Pack it free with Maya as particle plugin (what's probably gonna happen anyway) add middle mouse button repeat and strong and FAST Pass/Partition/Override render system in Maya and then kill it.

btw: I use XSI on a daily and nightly basis and I hate the gui, feel of workflow and workarounds in Maya. But I'm using XSI becouse it's still fastest way in doing most of the things in commercials even if I'm watching freezed white screen, blue rotating wheel of Windows waiting on process and unable to recovery crashes to big amount of the worktime.

Killing it helps a lot of studios to change pipeline to something more efective and user friendly with the strong developer helping hand. (Instead of big shareholders pockets).

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 27 Sep 2013, 22:47

I don't get your last sentence... could you rephrase, please?

Bullit · Post by **Bullit** » 28 Sep 2013, 05:01

Too much emotion brings this kind of threads and some posts that are negative.

Hirazi Blue · Post by **Hirazi Blue** » 28 Sep 2013, 08:25

While I disagree with pezetko's view on the matter at hand, I think his contribution is valid and certainly not based on too much emotion or deliberate negativity... As for the whole thread: a bit of emotion and negativity can't be avoided, given the subject matter.

gaboraa · Post by **gaboraa** » 28 Sep 2013, 08:27

Dwindleflip wrote:It's already dead I love it but lets be honest.

...that is not dead which can eternal lie yet with strange aeons even death may die:)
H.p. Lovecraft

Eugen · Post by **Eugen** » 28 Sep 2013, 09:52

Negativity? We are trying to keep the mood up as good as possible, don't we, given the fact that we are asked whether to be amputated either an arm or a leg... or the head, if we can't decide. (ok, bad analogy, nothing's going to be stripped away, but yeah)

Bellsey wrote:What if Softimage continued as normal, but it was channelled and focused into being a more specialised package for something.

Because you asked... (taking back the 'insult' accusation... =}

I like the idea of selling Soft as: 'casual, entry-level, general purpose 3D' (knowing of course this is an understatement).

If the big studios are going Maya now anyway, that leaves the small folks/freelancers. They are a relevant userbase, too, aren't they.
Soft is priced cheaper than the others already (although it could always be even cheaper - but DON'T make it even more expensive at least).

What a 'casual' user would need is the best/simplest/fastest possible workflow for day-to-day tasks, because he/she doesn't have a TD at hand, or doesn't do very experimental or complex tasks (knowing that ain't entirely true, too, because it's amazing what a handful of people can pull off with Soft).
What's vital for small folks is stability, easy of learn and use, consistency - right out of the box. (knowing Soft is catering this already, mostly...)

Actually, not much changes from AD side, except that it had to drop the ambition to place Soft in big studios as a 'high-end' tool, because AD wants that to be Maya territory, anyway.
(knowing that Soft would be very much capable of this, too)

Repeat:
Max - archvis, design
Maya - 'high-end', experimental, technical platform
Soft - casual, general purpose, beginners (I like understatement...)

Ideally, the 'casual' Max users (the ones that do not do hardcore archvis), would be lured over to Soft. Win-win. No idea how that could happen, though.
Yet most max users (including me) that cross to Soft feel clear improvement...
AD would have to show real dedication to continue Soft, though, because how inviting would it be to learn an application which is close to discontinuity.

About the coming release (if any):
Focus on 'workflow' - small annoying things. (like bugfixing in the last cycle)
This has a lot of impact, directly felt in day-to-day work, and is comparatively cheap.

To save money, stop investing into ambitious 'high-end' tools like CrowdFX!! (knowing that crowd systems exist as plugins anyway or can be created)

AD can 'park' Soft in the 'less serious' or 'cute' corner, but keep it alive and let users help themselves, by opening more SDK doors if possible (sorry for repeating myself like a parrot, but this is key).

By the way, 'opening the SDK' does not just automatically help those who want to make money with plugin dev, quite the opposite, because you know how many loads and loads of free addons there are already.

Makes any sense?

What if Softimage died?

Softimage is unofficially dead what would you do ?

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