So who is actually gonna jump ship?

[Kerro Perro]

Hey guys,

I'm sure all of us here are more than a little rattled by the recent lay-offs at Autodesk, making us doubt the future of Softimage and/or wether Autodesk is still a company we want to be dealing with. Some off you have been "unsatisfied" for quite some time and i know of a few "pro's" that have in fact already left.

I myself keep finding myself in the same position: on the one hand i find Modo or Blender much more appealling "philosophy-wise" but on the other i simply love working in Softimage.

Personally i keep coming back to just staying put simply because even though i'm still learning many aspects of it Softimage is just very comfortable and familiar to me now. (It might also be the money i invested in getting a proper license that would make me feel like an idiot if i switched, that's partly why i already dropped my sub)

But i'm very curious how others think about this: are any of you thinking about switching either partly or in total? If so to what software and why?

I don't mean to start a silly flame thread with this - and luckily i've never seen one on this forum - i'm just very curious what reasoning some of you guys who have invested serious amounts of time and money into Softimage would have for switching.

Oh and if you're not thinking about switching but staying with Softimage i'd like to know your reasoning too ;)

[luceric]

please do not say that people were fired, this has a specific connotation. they were let go as part of a layoff without prejudice. there are legal issues, you don't joke about these the things.

Also, note that Guillaume did not work on Softimage anymore since last January, he was working in Maya. the Softimage dev team was not affected.

[Kerro Perro]

Ok as that really wasn't the point of my posting i shall re-word it, i was however not joking - my feelings (and i suspect those of others) on this matter are quite real.

[Bullit]

You should choose based in quality of product - quality is obvioulsy a relative term related to the competition. Exclusively emotional decisons are usually not good.

[Kerro Perro]

I don't see where you're getting the concept of "exclusively emotional decisons" - i'm simply asking who is or isn't staying with Softimage and why.

I maybe shouldn't have used the word "feelings" but i was just trying to say i was not joking. My english is pretty good but sometimes i pick the wrong expression.

[Bullit]

If the decision is based in recent lay off of Mr.Stephen Blair then it would be a emotional decision. He was an excellent Ambassador of Softimage but he wasn't part of the core developing it as far as i can understand. You have to have more than that. So look at product and competition at 2014 release and then judge if it works for you or not.
Any judgment you can make can't be without knowing how the 2014 release pans out isn't it?
So it is obviously premature to seek an answer now.

[iamVFX]

Bullit right, Kerro, there is no place for emotions, it's a business. Why would you care about people like Steve if you'll get Softimage 2014 at the end of the day?

[Kerro Perro]

@Bullit: I explained my personal rational for staying and my reasons for doubt - be they emotional or not - and am curious as to what others think about this. I gather that you are still pretty confident and are reserving any judgement till you see the next release - that's fine and actually an answer to my question - perhaps everybody else thinks the same, perhaps not?

@iamVFX: for me it's just that i am more and more doubting AD's ability to manage Softimage - the layoffs just being another example of their shortsightedness.

[iamVFX]

for me it's just that i am more and more doubting AD's ability to run a business - the layoffs just being another example of their shortsightedness.

This is an unsubstantiated assertion. And probably based on your emotions.

[ActionArt]

As this doesn't effect me business wise directly I'll wait to see what 2014 has to offer. If it's not substantial, I won't renew my subscription but certainly won't stop using 2013. Between now and when 2014 is released, I will be putting more than the usual effort into evaluating other alternatives, as the uncertainty around what stupid thing AD will do next grows.

I have a very strong dislike for AD as a company but SI is hard to replace. It's a terrible shame they are linked. I'm sure many of the Maya folks felt the same at the time of their transition.

[iamVFX]

A few people on a forum are not represent the whole community, you can share your personal concerns on Autodesk decisions as you like, but they are not objective and far from reality

[Hirazi Blue]

@Kerro Perro - The feelings you express are definitively NOT unique... ;)

[Paulrus]

It's certainly going to be very interesting to see where things go. For me personally I've had a couple of support issues where I was not connected to Steve or Manny and in those cases I was really unhappy with how things were handled.

If support becomes like everything else at Autodesk, I could certainly see a change happening. Because my interactions with Autodesk in general have been horrible. I've repeatedly had them try to sell me on Maya, I've had people from AD not even know what Softimage was, not know how to pronounce it, etc. And if that becomes the norm, I don't know what I'd be paying for.

I do have high hopes for the new team, and Softimage in general. But Autodesk.... what a horrendous company...

-PG

[Pooby]

I'll jump ship if there is ever another piece of software around that improves upon XSI in all the important areas for me.

However, I'd be prepared to carry on using Softimage, even if it were discontinued, than just jump ship to something inferior for my workflow, which totally relies on a flexible and fast non-linear rigging and deformation workflow, and speedy visual programming at a point level.
I dont see anything remotely in the same ball park as XSI, in fact not even on the horizon yet.

To be honest, for what I'm doing. I'm really happy with what I have right now. I dont yearn for new features that I can't add myself.
Saying that, there are some ICE improvements I'd like to see.

I'm trusting in Fabric Engine for the future though. Thats the glimmer of hope I have for the longer term because I'm sure as heck not going for Maya in its current state.

[Bullit]

Kerro Perro you already learned most of Softimage isn't it? if so the issue of being confident or not is minor since that investment is already made.

[iamVFX]

I would stick with Softimage too because the original developers, back to Avid times, made enormous amount of work to provide wide variety of tools (besides ICE) for modeling, rigging, animation and scene interactions. All what we use on a daily basis for 98% the merit of Avid guys, their hard work that made Softimage such an user friendly and powerfull 3d package as we know it today.

But if you don't want to see how Autodesk making an katamari-like monster from it, Blender is a perfect alternative, besides not-so-great object manipulation tools (I really hope the work of this guy will be merged with the main trunk)

By the way, my last three messages is a joke, if someone don't get it