Softimage Protest film

[Pooby]

Last night I had the idea of Softimage users gathering together from around the globe to make a Film that expresses our feelings toward the situation.

At this stage, if you're anything like me your first reaction will be along the lines of 'It wont do any good' 'It would be impossible to coordinate' etc etc. I think we are all adults and understand that there are huge logistical difficulties when it comes to pulling something like this off and its not just going to be as simple as 'make a film -get softimage back'. Thats not really the point. If that happened then brilliant, but in the very least this is a way of showing how unhappy we are and at the same time, doing something amazing.

In less than 12 hours, we have 33 artists interested in contributing. edit NOW 51!
 
1 Paul Smith Generalist, ICE skills and character / mocap and animation
2 Artur Wozniak 3D Generalist, non-character animation, rendering, some nuke, VFX
3 Perry Harovas I am a generalist, but have good modeling skills and lighting/rendering skills. I am also a Nuke user, and could help composite.
4 Francisco Criado generalist , can also do compositing.
5 Paul Griswold I'm mainly a generalist.  My official title is director/animator, but I do everything from motion graphics to VFX (mainly particles).
6 Eugene Flormata generalist, I'd prefer to animate something though. I never get to do that enough at work.
7 Emilio Hernandez 3D generalist, character->modeling, rigging.  mid ICE level. Comp, editing and VFX here ready for battle.
8 Jason S Generalist/comp/matte paintings
9 Christian Lattuada I can model backgroud asset since I'm not a td or technical guy.
10 Rob Chapman ICE FX artist/TD, Softimage user for EIGHTEEN YEARS
11 Sebastian Sterling Im a Modeller, prefer characters but Multi-purpose.
12 Dan Pejril I am a generalist in Softimage with ICE skills, animation and rendering (recently I have been using 3delight and Redshift).I have a background in character animation and medical animation.
13 David Saber
14 Greg Punchatz i would be happy to edit it all together into a cohesive  piece . Put music to it etc....
15 Gustave Eggert Boehs  generalist, leaning towards ice/fx stuff, can composite in nuke
16 Rares Halmagean I bring character and prop modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, and some animation. Storyboards, matte painting and concept design experience as well.
17 Alok Gandhi custom tools/ plugins development required, custom ICE nodes in C++ or any other tech stuff that needs to be developed.
18 Scott-turb- generalist
19 Jens Lindgren VFX Supervisor with broad knowledge of ICE and compositing in Nuke
20 Richard Costin
21 Nicolas Esposito My contribution would be using Facerobot for humanoid faces using a combination of both lipsync and motion capture ( Faceware tech )
22 Arvid Bjorn cg sup and generalist, leaned towards lighting and shading.
23 Siew Yi Liang animation
24 Toonafish?
25 Matt Morris animation rigging
26 Thomas Volkmann generalist, ICE, comp ...no rigging
27 Sandy Sutherland Rigging, TD, pipeline, ICE?
28 Ola madsen
29 Olivier Jeannel?
30a Daniel Sweeney Modelling, texturing, rigging with gear but not a TD. lighting compositing. the lot really.
30b and Northforge
32 Darren Cullis Generalist Rigger animator
33 Hidalgo Serra Look dev and Generalist
edit for extras joining
34 Robert Cole Rendering, Lighting, Shading.
35 Alessio Agosti Character TD/Tools dev
36 Ognjen Vukovic shading and lighting if needed.
37 Nuno Conceicao and co lighting and compositing
38 Paulo Duarte Modeling;Shading / Lighting:Render, Mental Ray / Arnold;Particles / Comp Graphic design
39 Matthew Graves I can do ICE Fx and Problem solving and other such cool stuff.
40 Mirko Jankovic help with Redshift Rendering
41 Gaborra Modeller
42 Nika Ragua Ice and Modelling and sweeping the floors!
 43 Scrubjay
44 Ozadi Character animator
EDIT
45 Daniel Kim I am animation director and 3D generalist. I can do Modeling, Texture, Rigging, Animating, Lighting, only I can't do is ICE
46 Sven Constable As I'm also a softimage generalist I will happily add any modeling, shading, texturing, lighting, rendering work and 'general' animationanimate
47 Stephen Davidson
48 Mladen Kevic animation, generalist and AFX
49 Peter B generalist, will do lighting, particles, compositing,...
50 'Cheeseburger'
51 ArTriant
52 jujut
53 Alen
54 Daniel Hill and VFX media




Sorry If I've missed anyone . YOu can join at any time

[scrubjay]

I would be happy to join in. I have been teaching and using it for 14 years. What do you have in mind? Explanations of why it is better than existing Autodesk products? Interviews with users? Abstract pieces expressing the anger and distrust Autodesk has created?

[OzAdi]

Count me in!

I can best contribute as a character animator/ animation direction (I also do ICE stuff, rigging, and also a generalist), been doing 3D animation for 23 years, 17 of them using Softimage|3D/XSI..

www.ozadi.com

As a side note, I also ran an Idea in my head, of making Autodesk shaming T-shirts, and giving them away for free to people at shows like NAD, GDC and Siggraph..
so as many people will walk around, and sit in AD booth, with T-shirts that should make Autodesk people at the show feel uncomfortable with what they did, and put them in bad
lighting around the show floor. I am willing to donate a few hundreds dollars for these shirts..
this could be a silent yet (hopefully) loud protest against AD...

[Pooby]

Thank you both.. We are now up to Forty Four artists, which is awesome. This is not a documentary film. its a CGI fest showcasing Softimage's abilites through its artists.

This is my idea, cleaned up a bit, with suggestions from Doeke Wartena who aptly likened it to Forest Gump’s running sequence.

I thought Greg Mutt would be a good start, as he still has a lot of followers on you-tube and is kind of known. I had a big response from the VFX industry when I made it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o9Fod9KigU

We start with Greg Mutt (see above) doing a video blog about Soft being killed.. He suddenly jumps up and says You know what? Screw this!! and stomps off screen.
We cut to him walking down a street with purpose.
Then we cut to various other CGI characters or entities, leaving buildings, walking, running. making their way somewhere.
The shots get bigger as more and more CGI things join the walking groups.
Its starts getting Epic. Godzilla Stomps through times Square as a bunch of Lego-like characters run beneath him etc
We see Greg again, riding on a Trex, past Mount Rushmore, as helicopters fly past . George Washington’s stone face says ‘Go for it Greg!’
Tokyo and a bunch of Manga characters strut down the neon streets looking mean and others looking Cute join them.
Paris and a bunch of Monsters stick out their thumbs to hitch a ride. a massive spaceship descends.
etc ( increasingly epic ideas along these lines are up for grabs.)
Eventually an awesome throng of CGI characters, and entities gather at the HQ of Autodesk.. (this could be CGI and Stylised. Black and Imposing)
They are carrying banners, such as ‘make Softimage not war’. They stop.. Greg hesitates, from behind him, a character walks to the door.
It is a little cute Manga girl . she presses the buzzer a reply comes.
‘Hello, this is Autodesk. Press 1 if you want information on Maya. Press 2 if you want information on Max, press...’ (this bit needs more thought)
She leans in and whispers ‘Please don’t kill us’
SAVE SOFTIMAGE slams onto screen

I don’t want to force anyone to do this idea, but if the general consensus is that its a decent start then its worth building on I think. I think the good thing about it is that its a simple premise, yet allows for great creative freedom.

[scrubjay]

This would be the VFX sup in me talking: pick a format and stick with it. I would recommend 1280x720 24fps, with all frames rendered to 16bpp EXR. Timeline it with rough boards, off the top of my head it is around 30 - 45 seconds, depending on how many gags you include (things like the Times Square, the George Washington aside etc.) The animatic could be made in After Effects once some rough boards are imported. Maybe the animatic should be in Soft, with simple primitives to stand for characters? Determine how many characters we have, and what shape they are in: are they ready to animate? Who has resources they can reuse from old projects? Are they to scale? The shots can then be assigned, with the appropriate assets (characters, rigs, scene files, animatics etc). We should also be able to give exact frame counts to each animator, assume a 36 frame handle on each side of the shot. The audio, specifically vocals, would be assigned to a team. They would have to work with each animator using face robot for lip sync. Music and sound effects can be added after.

If you have even rough sketches, or screen grabs of something existing we could start on the animatic.

[mc_axe]

I would be soooo glad to contribute in a film like that, even with a single model.
You can add me as ArTriant_Modeler_Generalist SI_Biggest_fan_you`ll ever_know, other skills: electrical engeneer, can cook for an army.

Sending you more info in pm.

[Unaided]

I had the similar idea when I seen the Rythm&Hues video. Is sad, but I see similarities with that video.

Would be fantastic if can participate "vip's" of Softimage like Luc Eric, Ed Harris, Thiago Costa,... and others guru's and around Softimage people, (thinking names like Tim Borgmann, Eric Mootz, or Alastair Hearsum). Maybe Jordi Bares (ex TheMill) wish participate also.

I'm not a relevant figure in audiovisual production, but I have a lot of years working with several 3D applications, altought my main task is compositor, but these years, 8 years old with Softimage XSI and AD Softimage, and I can contribute in me small way.

[Pooby]

There has been talk of doing a more documentary style film. This isn't that.
Whilst that might be more sensible, I don't believe that anyone outside the vfx community would be interested.
This, done amazingly would likely go viral just at the sheer scale and unusualness of it. And I believe would attract a lot of media attention.

[xsi_fanatic]

There has been talk of doing a more documentary style film. This isn't that.
Whilst that might be more sensible, I don't believe that anyone outside the vfx community would be interested.
This, done amazingly would likely go viral just at the sheer scale and unusualness of it. And I believe would attract a lot of media attention.

Hi Pooby,

Count me in please.

[Pooby]

Brill thanks

[cheeseburger]

Need any help let me know ...

Great idea !


cheeseburger

[Paulo Duarte]

I liked the idea of Paul, I think it has to be refined, because in some shots can be very complex.

I have an idea that I would like to share:
The action takes place on a war battlefield, 2 tanks advancing in the field, one represents 3dsMax other Maya, each one with a characteristic weapon which best represents each software, for example the tank 3dsMax has a flamethrower (FumeFX), the tank Maya has multiple mechanical arms (Rigging and animation), these 2 tanks are having difficulties in battle, then comes the tank Softimage, with various weapons, more modern, more agile...
So the 3 tanks begin to advance in the field together, destroying bunkers passing across walls, then comes the captain who coordinates the tanks, orders the 3 to stop, asks for the team that is inside the Softimage tank to get out, half enters in the 3dsMax tank and other half in Maya tank. After, ordering the 2 tanks (Max and Maya) to continue advance in the battlefield, and the Softimage tank is left behind, in the subsequent battle the two tanks, (Max and Maya) don't have enough weapons to counter attack and are both annihilated. Then the animation ends showing the Tank Softimage super modern with lots of weapons, abandoned in the middle of the battlefield, ready to the battle, but no one to control.

It's just an idea, also the Greg Mutt could be the soldiers.

Visual Reference:
World of Tanks: Endless War 2013



Cheers.
Paulo Duarte

[sattish]

My Idea for the film would be, Some Roman / Medieval type setting which portraits AD as a tyrant, fat and ugly, covered in gold, sitting in an arena with three warriors fighting, representing max, maya and xsi.. and this tyrant watches them fight, with crowds jeering for maya and max warriors in the beginning by the end, when the 'xsi warrior' seems to be having an upper hand and the crowds start to love his moves and start cheering for him, this tyrant stops the fight and orders his soldiers to get hold of the warrior and behead him. we can close the shot with the tyrant's evil snickering and the crowds silent and mourning the death ..

[Alen]

Pooby idea is having more impact imho!

[Pooby]

I designed the original idea so that it would accomodate a really wide variety of styles. representing all the different work that is being done with Softimage. This is why I didn't go for anything too specific.
Also.. I dont think it should be a visual metaphor for what Autodesk have done to Softimage- thats depressing. It should be a visual metaphor of what we are doing right now.. IE . us joining together and making this film as I think That is uplifting.

At its heart, its just characters going somewhere with purpose to make a stand, and to make it look epic, so its almost an open brief. I also think that the wider public will enjoy watching it, even though they have no interest in 'CGI geeks grumbling about software'

I think it needs to appeal on more than 1 level, and be a celebration of our work too.

[mc_axe]

Thank you very much for adding me, im all ideas:

Hidden content: [ Show ]

But lets stay on your concept i like it , apart from the small varius characters, id like to see more godjilla sized ones joining in the end
as exaggeration.
The big ones can be also some classic figures from the well known movies (made with Softimage)
some dinasaur from Jurasic park?

titanic? it self, entering the scene,

all this before the buzzer hit.

Its a shame to kill a vegeterian dino right? or leo di caprio again,, lol

Also it would be not bad to have some fans from those classic movies supporting us. ;)
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Apart from the scenario, how do you plan to manage all those artists? and where are they, do we have some hidden headquorters?