Anti-Autodesk Strategies

[ActionArt]

My view is that anything that is not financial in nature will not change AD's mind about SI. Therefore I suggest the following:

Contact Autodesk AND your retailer DIRECTLY. Chances are the people who matter never look here and don't care unless they hear from a lot of people.

Let them know how much you hate their decision. Tell them that you will NEVER buy Autodesk again and that you will go WAY out of your way to dissuade anyone else from purchasing AD (in a legal fashion of course).

Let them know that by doing this they've created a slew of enemies that are determined to really damage their bottom line and ruin future sales at every chance on ANY of their products. For example, where I work now, I'll be in the position to change over 100 seats of Inventor to a competitor during our next evaluation. Say goodbye to that AD! Let them know this decision IS going to cost them (in the only area they care about). Let them know that if they think you're going to buy Max or Maya, think again.

In short, do your part to reduce their sales and let them know that you will continue indefinitely.

Just my point of view on what might work. If not it will still be fun and slightly satisfying. Other ideas most welcome

[MauricioPC]

Actually your idea is the best idea ... hurt where it matters ... on their pockets.

[kiwimation]

You could go the other way and let autodesk know that if they bring back SI you will commit to paying subs for it

[luis7654]

Or you can start learning a new software because Autodesk doesn't care xD

[TheRazorsEdge]

I think what might really piss them off is when the majority of SI users/studios would not take up their offer to switch, stop paying subscription, massively dissuade others from buying AD product and finally refuse to let SI die by continually extending the software themselves with scripts and plugins in some sort of organized fashion, ie annual 3rd party script&plugin-collections and continue to churn out top-notch work without AD seeing another penny come their way.

It's probably a slim chance, but depending on how tenacious SI-users/studios keep something like that up, AD might actually officially "revive" SI again at some point in time, just to be able to cash in again.

Cheers!

[Hirazi Blue]

Okay, I am not going to win any friends with this, but here goes…
While the demise of Softimage hurts us all a lot (and that’s probably an understatement), I think we should all keep in mind that we all knew what kind of company Autodesk was even before the acquisition. The acquisition would have been a perfect time to withhold our money from Autodesk, although that automatically would have meant the end of the software there and then. I know of some users who did just that. The day of the acquisition they packed their virtual bags and went to some other side. And even after the acquisition there were definitely reasons enough to give up on Autodesk and Softimage. Very compelling reasons, Softimage 2013 for instance was a joke IMHO, Softimage 2014 was an insult, again IMHO.
Personally I am starting to doubt, if this really was a decision inspired by financial whim of the higher-ups In the company. I tend to believe lucerics remarks about the problematic codebase and the last couple of releases seem to show the lack of a clearly defined roadmap after the main ICE roadmap that had started with XSI 7 seemingly had more or less come to an end when ICE modeling was introduced. Codebase and hard to define roadmap to go forward might just as well also have killed Softimage, not just managerial whim. Managerial whim obviously will have played its part, but it probably was not solely responsible. Blaming Autodesk for being Autodesk, acting like we always knew it would act, and for sinking a ship that apparently already had quite a bit of holes in it would seem somewhat problematic.
And a few Softimage users withholding them some money won’t hurt them one bit. Losing some customers over unpopular decisions is probably part of their standard calculations of yearly profit.

[MauricioPC]

Ideally hurting them on the pocket would be the best option. Only Softimage users wouldn't have an effect, but if 3ds Max users started shifting to other shores, than maybe. But it's been said that M&E is only 7% of what AD have ... so, M&E is just to showcase how cool they are and how they make movies and stuff ... marketing wise is great for the company and maybe it's just that.

Now, if you want to work and have access to LOTS of tutorials, than Maya and 3ds Max are still the best bet.

[ActionArt]

It's a small chance I admit. It all depends on how many people they hear from. SI users are of no concern by themselves but if those same users damage other sales then they might notice.

What they are counting on is that SI users will be upset for a while but then change to Max or Maya. If we make it look like that's not going to happen, and they might lose others sales in significant amounts then maybe there's a chance. Just sayin'.

[TheRazorsEdge]

I have to admit that the recent announcement did not hit me unprepared or surprise me at all. Although I hate to say it, I had already accepted that XSI was more or less "murdered" when AD acquired it, but there still seemed to be hope. But the near end should have been very obvious to everyone once they had shifted the Si dev-team over to Maya.

As long as there's no change in workflow paradigm, I'll just continue using SI for as long as it makes sense and speeds up my own productivity. Heck, I'll even continue learning about some features and workflows I haven't touched yet. There's no reason to buy a new hammer while the old one is still doing a great job, but when everything boils down to reality, we still have to make a living and at some point that may not be feasible anymore with only SI in ones tool-set.

That said, I personally don't have an anti-AD strategy yet. Something new, not AD would be perfect, but unfortunately I can't see Modo, Houdini, C4D or Lightwave being that solution anytime soon.

Cheers!

[Bullit]

When the crew that came from Avid was split/taken out from Softimage there was no one inside Autodesk to take the torch.

That decision was crucial.

luceric likes to badmouth Softimage , but curiosly doesn't says the trouble that Maya has. And for it must have big troubles since we see how slow it is being developed.

[luceric]

There was a hope when suites were created and Softimage added to them. Softimage ICE could have become the de facto Procedural FX app in the portfolio if the market had adopted in. I'm sure people like the guys behind Thinking Particles were shaking in their boots, too. Lagoa was the biggest thing ever that year, with the video on engadget.com This is when you guys began to freak out about being a "companion to maya" but it was indeed the best chance in history to get back into lost Maya studio and introduced to Max studios. But it didn't catch on. Chinny suggested making a version of Softimage that is just ICE so that it's easier to digest (or even invisible) that you'd run a separate app for FX, but you can't really hide the fact that it's a huge separate app with its different approach to a scene graph. Ironically the naiad guys behind bifrost were also going for this separate app concept, but in think in practice it will look like any native feature while authoring.

[MauricioPC]

There was a hope when suites were created and Softimage added to them. Softimage ICE could have become the de facto Procedural FX app in the portfolio if the market had adopted in. I'm sure people like the guys behind Thinking Particles were shaking in their boots, too. Lagoa was the biggest thing ever that year, with the video on engadget.com This is when you guys began to freak out about being a "companion to maya" but it was indeed the best chance in history to get back into lost Maya studio and introduced to Max studios. But it didn't catch on. Chinny suggested making a version of Softimage that is just ICE so that it's easier to digest (or even invisible) that you'd run a separate app for FX, but you can't really hide the fact that it's a huge separate app with its different approach to a scene graph. Ironically the naiad guys behind bifrost were also going for this separate app concept, but in think in practice it will look like any native feature while authoring.

The guys at Thinking Particles are quite quiet lately. Thinkbox is already porting lots of stuff to Maya (even though Bobo says they'll always develop on Max). Thinking Particles would be cool in Maya (to battle with Houdini), but ICE was better, but it never catch on.

I myself took much time before delving deep into Softimage ... I could be a lot better today if I had done.

[Bullit]

I am sorry but you are being disingenuous, what is the market for procedural FX at ICE granular level ?

To not even talk how Autodesk didn't promoted Softimage.

An application like that can't be successful by how you guys in Autodesk rate "success" .
How many artists want or have knowledge to dwell into that granular level?

Autodesk would have killed Houdini for example. For them, and by your commonly stated overall opinion Houdini is not a successful application.

So in Autodesk hands no application will have ever success with procedural FX because there isn't enough technical artists at that level.

First to be a success there is need to patience, and Autodesk had no patience, lack of it shown curiously when Softimage was once again making amazing work, getting plugins and render engines.
Maybe that slowly growing shadow was too much to bear even despite 2 last versions being mediocre/mistaken feature wise.

[luceric]

Well, there is a lot of particles and smoke, and also motion graphics being done everywhere, so one could dream imho. Ice didn't have to just be about granular- level programming

[MauricioPC]

Well, there is a lot of particles and smoke, and also motion graphics being done everywhere, so I've could dream imho. Ice didn't have to just be about granular- level programming

It's funny that when you talk with people of other softwares, they have a conception that ICE is a programming addon. Few realize that it was capable of a lot more. Maybe that was the problem.

[Rez007]

There was a hope when suites were created and Softimage added to them. Softimage ICE could have become the de facto Procedural FX app in the portfolio if the market had adopted in. I'm sure people like the guys behind Thinking Particles were shaking in their boots, too. Lagoa was the biggest thing ever that year, with the video on engadget.com This is when you guys began to freak out about being a "companion to maya" but it was indeed the best chance in history to get back into lost Maya studio and introduced to Max studios. But it didn't catch on. Chinny suggested making a version of Softimage that is just ICE so that it's easier to digest (or even invisible) that you'd run a separate app for FX, but you can't really hide the fact that it's a huge separate app with its different approach to a scene graph. Ironically the naiad guys behind bifrost were also going for this separate app concept, but in think in practice it will look like any native feature while authoring.

I think adding Softimage to the Suites, was indeed a smart move and a good way to penetrate studios. However, it seems like Autodesk just throws their arms up in the air and says "oh well, it didn't catch on..." as if they did all they could and it was the user's fault for not using it as the reason why it failed. I think we can all agree that Autodesk's severe lack of marketing for Softimage was perhaps a major, if not the main, reason why it didn't do well.

From a lot of Softimage users who did migrate over to the Suites, they said that all of a sudden Autodesk now treated them as Maya or Max subscribers with Softimage being a bonus. Did that play into a factor with the demise of Softimage? Maybe, but surely I would think Autodesk would be able to tell the different types of users they have and not just lump everyone as a Maya or Max person....