Avid Aquires CAT

[Layer01]

oooOOOooOOOOoo

thats interesting, so i assume that the CAT tools will work their way into XSI..somehow?

[Gwot]

I'm actually more excited about this than when Face Robot was announced. :thumbsup:
I really hope to see an XSI compatible version of CAT in the near future!

[RenisanceX]

think this is going to target more of the muscle sytem areas in xsi some what ..yeah?

[JDex]

oooOOOooOOOOoo

thats interesting, so i assume that the CAT tools will work their way into XSI..somehow?

I would assume that this is the case... I think the future is bright for this move. I'm not a CA, infact I barely work w/ characters at all... but all the time I hear folks talking about CAT and how 'effin' cool it is... I can't wait to see how this acquisition impacts the SI animators.

[Awara]

It will be really intresting to see how Avid will manage to integrate it with XSI. and what will happen to the Max part of it.
will they still develop max plugin for CAT.

Good luck to Avid.....

A

[Spacelord]

Holy Cow this is good news !!.


I wonder if there going to intergrate it into XSI
or charge a fortune for it like face robot :) hehe

I doubt they'll stop the 3dsmax version of it,
since they make face robot for 3dsmax too.

[Mic_Ma]

Ahh, that is very good news for XSI users, me thinks!

CAT combined with Facerobot! Great!

[jason-slab]

ahh it's a great tool for animation, especially when u need to just do something quickly, i had to use it about a year ago on a project, i was very impressed, looking forward to a XSI release!


jason

[supersteve3d]

A great piece of software.

This is a good decision by Avid methinks. XSI just got another shot in the arm while 3dsMax's future with this plugin is dubious at best.

Avid says to Autodesk: "Bring it on!" :)

[doCHtor]

:surprised If I see no new version of CAT for max, I can't guarantee for myself :twisted:

[JDex]

With this purchase, Avid and Softimage are committed to continuing to develop, sell, and support CAT products, ensuring that our customers and resellers see no interruption in access to CAT products or services during this transition. With that in mind, Softimage will continue to provide the same sales, support, and services that were available from CAT in the past and CAT customers will continue to have the same sales and support contacts as they have had in the past.

I think it benefits Avid to have it's apps play ball with Autodesk... even if Autodesk chooses to not be so avid about it's apps playing nice with others.

FaceFobot plays very nice w/ other apps, as does XSI... it would not make sense to assume this won't be the case with CAT products...

[the_zed_axis]

xsi is good and the studio that i work for has just made the big move from a more maya/max centric pipeline to softimage ....been looking around its features and cat is a very smart move NOW i only hope that autodesk doesnt buy out xsi hahaha

[Firefox]

Thats an awesome news! i have tried CAT on max and i think its a really cool tool for rigging and animation. It would be really interesting to see how it integrates into XSI.....

Since the time i have tried CAT on max i always wished if they could do something like this for XSI....

carnt wait to test it out ...

cheers

[salmonmoose]

There go my hopes of Autodesk killing off the dinosaur that is Character Studio and replacing it with the oh-so-slick CAT :(

[Gräck]

I'm very excited. As a Max-only user with CAT as my favorite character animation tool, I hope CAT3 will still be released for Max. Otherwise I will have to make the change to XSI sometime as I cannot imagine to work without CAT.

CAT is the best - let's hope the best!

[CupOWonton]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Same as what others have said. I was hoping Autodesk bought CAT and integrated it with Max. I am SICK of CS, rigging is just an absolute pain in max, probably why I never became a character artists and ended up doing furniture.

[EternalArt]

wow .. it's a good plan from avid to put the foot more and more in the animation .
Softimage now have amazing pipeline
( XSI - Facerobot - CAT ) a lot of power in animation ..

who know what's avid plan to do in the future .

anyway that is great news .

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

I wonder if this was a situation of you can't beat them buy them. Or if with there recent dealings with Blur or other max-centric companies they heard about CAT, and were looking to pull some of the market share. Personally I am not a fan of CAT after what they forced a freeware tool off the max market.

-Eric

[DimitrisLiatsos]

Best move ever...I really wanna see how this will affect upcoming versions of XSI...

Good for Avid...and us of course :bounce:.

[ThirdEye]

Alias buys Kaydara, Softimage buys CAT. Autodesk buys Alias, who buys Softimage? ;)

[Apoclypse]

Alias buys Kaydara, Softimage buys CAT. Autodesk buys Alias, who buys Softimage? ;)

AVID. :).

Seriously. Why do people keep clamroing for softimage to get bought, as if they were a small startup or something. AVID owns softimage, they alos own alot of other things like protools, m-audio. They are far from small. It will take a pretty chunk to buy softimage from avid.

[ngrava]

Ok, I'm not trying to rock the boat but I as a user of both Max\CAT and XSI, I can't really see what the benefit of this would be. XSI can do just about everything that CAT can do. Let's see, Auto/script based rigging, yep. Animation Layers and blending, XSI invented the term "Non-Liner Animation". footstep procedural motion, yep that too. I've used CAT Muscle and it's great... Brilliant, but totally simple. It's really just a spline patch deformer that can be hooked to bones. So, really... So, what is it that CAT could offer XSI?

[Roger Eberhart]

Personally I am not a fan of CAT after what they forced a freeware tool off the max market.

-Eric

Which freeware tool?

[shingo]

Some of what you say is true, but not all these features inside XSI are the best of breed.

Why did Alias purchase Kaydara? It could be argued that anything done in MotionBuilder could already be done in Maya, or at least acheived with the help of Mel and SDK, but that doesn't mean it was available to everybody. With Maya, MAX and MotionBuilder under the one roof, there is the danger that motion capture options have been cornered.

CAT will provide a powerful motion capture and retargetting option for XSI.

The script based rigging in XSI was OK for it's time but is dated, and not as deep as CAT. XSI doesn't ship with any ready to use Motion Capture or retargetting tools. The footstep tool is pretty basic, good for what it does, but not flexible. Animation Layers in the Mixer work, but are not intuitive, and it is nice to be abel to access layers without haiving to dig into the Mixer.

Games companies also like to be able to standardize on one rig format, which is why CS was so popular in games for so long.

People have been asking for muscle systems for a long time and not everyoen has the resources or R&D to develop their own systems.

Those familiar with CAT for MAX will also feel comfortable moving to XSI, with the benefit of a familiar toolset.

Ok, I'm not trying to rock the boat but I as a user of both Max\CAT and XSI, I can't really see what the benefit of this would be. XSI can do just about everything that CAT can do. Let's see, Auto/script based rigging, yep. Animation Layers and blending, XSI invented the term "Non-Liner Animation". footstep procedural motion, yep that too. I've used CAT Muscle and it's great... Brilliant, but totally simple. It's really just a spline patch deformer that can be hooked to bones. So, really... So, what is it that CAT could offer XSI?

[gent_k]

Ok, I'm not trying to rock the boat but I as a user of both Max\CAT and XSI, I can't really see what the benefit of this would be. XSI can do just about everything that CAT can do. Let's see, Auto/script based rigging, yep. Animation Layers and blending, XSI invented the term "Non-Liner Animation". footstep procedural motion, yep that too. I've used CAT Muscle and it's great... Brilliant, but totally simple. It's really just a spline patch deformer that can be hooked to bones. So, really... So, what is it that CAT could offer XSI?

True, but on the other hand experienced Max users can probably do rigs with max's default rigging tools that simulate most of the features that CAT has.
So I think the main thing the new 'crew' will work for XSI is easy-to-use, fast, non-technical rigging that CAT seems to offer. i.e. tools which people can use on projects with a lot of characters, where they want to create rigs in seconds and just start animating!

I don't think they'll try to make the whole thing like in Max. They won't have to implement redundant features, and will just focus on stuff they specialize in, and from what I can see on their website they specialize in 'rigging for dummies'. (they have some other cool technologies, no doubt)

[maxplugins]

Puppetshop from Kees Rijnen.
(in reply to Roger Eberhart)

Dave

[yog]

I think it benefits Avid to have it's apps play ball with Autodesk... even if Autodesk chooses to not be so avid about it's apps playing nice with others.Yep, agreed.
Perhaps the fact that Softimage provide a free to use MAX version of Gator with XSI is a sign that they do intend to work with others ..... unlike say Autodesk.

[Gwot]

I've always been somewhat confused as to why people would resist the idea of making rigging and animation easier to do. I started out animating in character studio when it first hit the market and have since learned to rig and animate in several packages inlcuding XSI. But to me animation has never been easier than it was in character studio. I consider the technical side of animation a necessary evil that I would gladly do without if the tools ever evolved to be easier and more powerful, and most of all, save me time in getting to the final product. It's about the animation in my opinion, not the rigs that it was done with. You never see that in the films or games we do this stuff for. This is why I see things like Face Robot and C.A.T. integration as a good thing. It means more time to spend animating.

[shingo]

Thats a good point. I think there is this mentality that if something can conceivably be achieved with the existing achitecture, it is somehow selling out to include tools that make the process faster and easier.

Maya had an animation mixer in v6 but they still purchased Kaydara. Why? Becasue Kaydara did it better. Gone are the days when having a feature was sufficient - now users are demanding that it be good or as good as what's avilable elsewhere.

CAT was developed long after CS came to the market. The developers clearly saw a reason to deelop it and a demand for what they had to offer. This has been proven to right by the populatiry of he product, in spite fo CS now being included with MAX.

I've always been somewhat confused as to why people would resist the idea of making rigging and animation easier to do. I started out animating in character studio when it first hit the market and have since learned to rig and animate in several packages inlcuding XSI. But to me animation has never been easier than it was in character studio. I consider the technical side of animation a necessary evil that I would gladly do without if the tools ever evolved to be easier and more powerful, and most of all, save me time in getting to the final product. It's about the animation in my opinion, not the rigs that it was done with. You never see that in the films or games we do this stuff for. This is why I see things like Face Robot and C.A.T. integration as a good thing. It means more time to spend animating.

[Roger Eberhart]

Puppetshop from Kees Rijnen.
(in reply to Roger Eberhart)

Dave

I think you'll probably find that has nothing to do with CAT and everything to do with Kees's employer (Bioware) that use his tools internally. I'm not 100% certain of this, but that would be my guess. I believe it was already pointed out in another thread that there is no relation whatsoever between Puppetshop and CAT.

[CupOWonton]

That is horrible news for someone who paid $40k to go to college, and learn 3dsmax, along with paying for a copy of 3dsmax 8.

[jgoldfin]

Hi -

Just to let you know, we have posted an FAQ on the Avid Asset Acquisition of Character Animation Technologies Ltd.

http://www.softimage.com/about_us/announcements/2006/060717_faq.aspx (http://www.softimage.com/about_us/announcements/2006/060717_faq.aspx)

Best Regards,

Jennifer Goldfinch
Manager, Strategic Relations
Softimage Co. / Avid Technology, Inc.

[Cavematty]

CAT is cool.
Phil is the bomb.
Go xsi!
When is CAT coming to Maya.......? :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

That is horrible news for someone who paid $40k to go to college, and learn 3dsmax, along with paying for a copy of 3dsmax 8.
This has to be one of the dumbest posts I have ever read. What does Avid buying CAT have to do with what you are paying for college and the fact that you bought max 8? Sorry I just don't understand what you mean. It's not like they bought and killed off 3dsmax. So far they haven't said they are stopping to make the max plugin. Though "Avid will continue to support all of the existing CAT customers, including customers who use products that may be competitive with Avid’s products. CAT customers can expect the same level of technical support that they have received in the past." doesn't indicate that there will or will not be a new version.

-Eric

[mummey]

It says they acquired the assets. How many people who were working on this no longer have jobs?

[SimonPickard]

" When is CAT coming to Maya.......?"

Erm... Now that softimage owns it take a guess! :)
I'm thinking of one the reasons soft got it was so autodesk didn't.

Regards,
Simon.

[SheepFactory]

Excellent news!

I cant wait for the next version of XSI with some nice char-anim improvements :)

[craiggulow]

It says they acquired the assets. How many people who were working on this no longer have jobs?

One. But this isn't a case of the big company gobbling the little company and leaving people's lives in ruins. That one person planned for this situation from the get-go as he wants to take some serious time off and do things unrelated to 3D.

[mummey]

One. But this isn't a case of the big company gobbling the little company and leaving people's lives in ruins. That one person planned for this situation from the get-go as he wants to take some serious time off and do things unrelated to 3D.

Ok, Nevermind. :)

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

I think you'll probably find that has nothing to do with CAT and everything to do with Kees's employer (Bioware) that use his tools internally. I'm not 100% certain of this, but that would be my guess. I believe it was already pointed out in another thread that there is no relation whatsoever between Puppetshop and CAT.
Read this (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=294891) CG Forums thread and tell me if it reads like Bioware made Kees stop. After reading over it appears that CAT patented something in relation to F/IK. This seems to be why Puppetshop was removed from the market, guessing based on info in the thread. This apparently left a bad taste in some peoples mouths.

-Eric

[rock]

Alias buys Kaydara, Softimage buys CAT. Autodesk buys Alias, who buys Softimage? ;)

Autodesk buys itself.

[Roger Eberhart]

Read this (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=294891) CG Forums thread and tell me if it reads like Bioware made Kees stop. After reading over it appears that CAT patented something in relation to F/IK. This seems to be why Puppetshop was removed from the market, guessing based on info in the thread. This apparently left a bad taste in some peoples mouths.


-Eric

Puppetshop was never on the market. It was freely distributed. CAT introduced their F/IK long after Puppetshop was MIA. If you really want to know why Puppetshop was taken down ask Kees. Don't drag CAT's name through the mud based on hearsay. Kees is a TD for Bioware. He has continued to develop Puppetshop at Bioware. Bioware probably doesn't want the work that they pay for freely distributed on the internet. What I know of the matter is based on talking to former and current employees at Bioware, not forum gossip.

[mummey]

Autodesk buys itself.

MS buys Avid, rewrites XSI, then sells it to Autodesk.

[ihavenofish]

MS already had softimage. they sold it to avid.

my views on cat are.. who cares?. unless you are bound to a cat/max pipeline, really theres not much to worry about for a good while. its similar to the whole alias buy out. max and maya arent going away soon, and i imagine neither will cat for max.

unfortunately for me, we were in the process of binding ourselves to cat in max for a major cg feature. now avid/softimage is going to have to reassure us impecable support for the coming 2 years, or cat will get dropped like a rock.

as far as puppetshop goes, kees is a member of this forum, perhaps its best to let him make any comments on why it went away. in my current situation, id love to see it come back in some form if it was at all possible.

later

[CupOWonton]

This has to be one of the dumbest posts I have ever read. What does Avid buying CAT have to do with what you are paying for college and the fact that you bought max 8? Sorry I just don't understand what you mean. It's not like they bought and killed off 3dsmax. So far they haven't said they are stopping to make the max plugin. Though "Avid will continue to support all of the existing CAT customers, including customers who use products that may be competitive with Avid’s products. CAT customers can expect the same level of technical support that they have received in the past." doesn't indicate that there will or will not be a new version.

-Eric

Historicly:

Company A and Company B are rivals
Company C makes software for A and B
Company A buys company C
Company C no longer MAKES new software to fit with Company B.
Company B and its large user base get shafted.

I was HOPING to get some better character animation tools for max. CAT will most likely continue to be updated strictly for an XSI workflow.

[saiko]

AVID. :).

Seriously. Why do people keep clamroing for softimage to get bought, as if they were a small startup or something. AVID owns softimage, they alos own alot of other things like protools, m-audio. They are far from small. It will take a pretty chunk to buy softimage from avid.

what about Alias?! was that a small company?!! :D

[mediaramas]

nooo! I`ve been using CAT for over 2 years so far, it`s a great and fun tool to use, I just hope upcoming version are still available for max

[doCHtor]

Posted by Scott on CAT forums:


Hi everyone, I can imagine that you are worried about the future of CAT for Max, but you can relax.

Softimage don't want to leave you all angry and are going to be developing and supporting CAT for a while yet. CAT2.5 and CAT3.0 are still in the pipeline, so there will be Max9 version etc. Tech support will be continuing too, as normal.

Scott Pearson - CEO, Character Animation Technologies Ltd


So it doesn't look so bad.

[Kabab]

Well pissing off the customer base your trying to win isn't a very good idea :)

[shingo]

perhaps you should first ask autodesk if they will give you impecable support for the coming 2 years? I doubt they'll give it to you.

And if they don't or cat will you drop MAX like a rock?



unfortunately for me, we were in the process of binding ourselves to cat in max for a major cg feature. now avid/softimage is going to have to reassure us impecable support for the coming 2 years, or cat will get dropped like a rock.

later

[shingo]

Perhaps you should first start by asking Autodesk if they will give you impecable support for the coming 2 years? Good luck - I doubt they'll give it to you.

And if they don't, will you drop MAX like a rock?


unfortunately for me, we were in the process of binding ourselves to cat in max for a major cg feature. now avid/softimage is going to have to reassure us impecable support for the coming 2 years, or cat will get dropped like a rock.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Historicly:

Company A and Company B are rivals
Company C makes software for A and B
Company A buys company C
Company C no longer MAKES new software to fit with Company B.
Company B and its large user base get shafted.

I was HOPING to get some better character animation tools for max. CAT will most likely continue to be updated strictly for an XSI workflow.
And? What does this have to do with your education and learning max? Plugins will always be coming and going and new tools will be implemented into the host package that could make existing tools obsolete. From your posts you make it sound like max can't exist without CAT. CAT is just an extra tool in your toolset not something that max can't run without.

-Eric

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

[left]

Puppetshop was never on the market. It was freely distributed. CAT introduced their F/IK long after Puppetshop was MIA. If you really want to know why Puppetshop was taken down ask Kees. Don't drag CAT's name through the mud based on hearsay. Kees is a TD for Bioware. He has continued to develop Puppetshop at Bioware. Bioware probably doesn't want the work that they pay for freely distributed on the internet. What I know of the matter is based on talking to former and current employees at Bioware, not forum gossip.
My comments weren't based on forum gossip. They were based on kees responses in that thread. In the end you may be right or I could be right or we both could be wrong so I am just going to drop this as it seems neither CAT nor kees are going to speak up about it.

-Eric

[mental]

XSI invented the term "Non-Linear Animation".
Errr... no they didn't. NLA was around in one shape or another for many years before XSI arrived on the scene.

[shingo]

He did say "invented the term", but you have a point. Kaydara were doing it pretty nicely within Filmbox before XSI came along.

XSI and Motino Buidler are the only apps that have nailed it. MAX 8 and Maya are pretty limited in this area.

Mind you, NLA in XSI involves much more than just the Mixer. It refers to attribute preservation and non destructive modelling, rigging and animation. In that regard, it is way ahead of the competition - apart from Houdini of course.

Errr... no they didn't. NLA was around in one shape or another for many years before XSI arrived on the scene.

[punchatz]

Errr... no they didn't. NLA was around in one shape or another for many years before XSI arrived on the scene.

Softimage DID invent NLA http://www.softimage.com/about_us/pdf/getting_into_character.pdf
to the best of my knowledge. Look at the Timeline

Hash was next (I think) or right about the same time.

Greg

[ThirdEye]

Softimage DID invent NLA http://www.softimage.com/about_us/pdf/getting_into_character.pdf
to the best of my knowledge. Look at the Timeline

Hash was next (I think) or right about the same time.

Greg

If Softimage invented NLA i invented sliced bread. It was a concept already well known in the industry when XSI came out, think about Mirai for example.

[ThirdEye]

MS rewrites XSI

Already seen. Next.

[Gräck]

And? What does this have to do with your education and learning max? Plugins will always be coming and going and new tools will be implemented into the host package that could make existing tools obsolete. From your posts you make it sound like max can't exist without CAT. CAT is just an extra tool in your toolset not something that max can't run without.

-Eric

Of course this can be a reason to drop Max.

For example, all the characters of our game projects are animated with CAT. Without CAT, we would never have been able to reach our deadlines, that's for sure. Now if I imagine to work in Max without CAT while doing almost character rigging and animation only, I don't know if this will be meaningful. So this can be a reason to drop Max indeed. If XSI will really benefit from that and add CAT-like features, I will see if I will make the change from Max to XSI in a few years.

[mental]

weird double post :surprised

[mental]

If Softimage invented NLA i invented sliced bread. It was a concept already well known in the industry when XSI came out, think about Mirai for example.
Well it looks like greg is correct in that Softimage came out with first finished product to apply the non-linear concept to animation (Animation Sequencer) back in '97. But I'm fairly certain that the idea and even 'in house' proto-NLA type programs to handle motion capture data were in use before then.

[ihavenofish]

"Perhaps you should first start by asking Autodesk if they will give you impecable support for the coming 2 years? Good luck - I doubt they'll give it to you.

And if they don't, will you drop MAX like a rock"

autodesk support is.. err. yeah :)
but weve become accustomed to that and know how to deal with it.

i was more referring to cat being updated, bug fixes, responsive to requests.
we use cat after all to get around the fact that adesk isnt responsive :)

dropping max however isnt an option at this point. too much into it, and no adequate alternative (dont go fishing for a flame war there, they all suck, max just sucks least for our needs). dropping cat is somewhat simpler. its not that hard to find an alternative, and not budget crushing to hire someoene to build a custom solution.

anyhow
later

[Signal2Noise]

First there was Face Robot.

Soon there will be CAT ROBOT! :eek:

Mwahahahahaha!

[ReneAlex]

avid/XSI is building bridges not burning them down... they know that audodesk is a big bad bully... a enormous corporation who owns the number 1 AND number 2 packages, they will not play; who blink first? with autodesk; they are practicing guerrilla tactics, letting the user base to swing the game.

IMHO avid has no intention to sweep the max user base to its favor, at least not like alias did when they bought kaydara (max users: remember human ik?) so far avid is putting in XSI a Safe for 3ds max options in its File menu (http://vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=2860) ... Face Robot is kind a "face motion builder" a product not exclusive for XSI users, but to any software pipeline... like apple learn when "hell freeze over" (remember the ipod/itunes now for windows) to isolate is not a smart way the compete; is a vain one...

To me this is a way to bring balance to the market, they surely will transform CAT into a module ala face robot and compete with motionbuilder, and of course use some of the parametric rig technology into XSI...in short; keep and improve CAT for max, and eventualy making it stadalone.

it would be cool to have a CAT GATOR in xsi and a link to max :rolleyes:.

Now before someone says that I'm full of... this are my opinions, this are not facts... maybe this two cents bring more healthy discussion.

[shingo]

Sure I take your point.

Look at it this way. CAT was making money and doing well in it's won right. Soft aren;t stupid. They don't want to isolate anyone and they ultimately want to keep making money.
They bought the intelectual property to CAT, bu the cmpany still exists, meaning that it wil continue to operate as a seperate entity.

Don't tkae it from me, but I'm sure you will be fine with CAT on your project.


i was more referring to cat being updated, bug fixes, responsive to requests.
we use cat after all to get around the fact that adesk isnt responsive :)

[shingo]

You are probably more right than you even realise.

it would be cool to have a CAT GATOR in xsi and a link to max :rolleyes:.

Now before someone says that I'm full of... this are my opinions, this are not facts... maybe this two cents bring more healthy discussion.

[craiggulow]

i was more referring to cat being updated, bug fixes, responsive to requests.
we use cat after all to get around the fact that adesk isnt responsive :)


I refer you to my comment about this subject on Max Underground:

http://maxunderground.com/archives/003296_softimage_catches_a_cat.html

[mustique]

I'm wondering who'll be the first to aquire Naturalmotion and/or Massivesoftware...?

[Arcanox]

Oh great, now Autodesk has to buy XSI as well... :(

[Gräck]

I'm really looking forward to CAT3. I know there will be great improvements to the rigging system, though this is already a plus for CAT anyway.

Max9 and CAT3 - this will be the future in character animation for the next 2-3 years for sure (at least for me).

[NRG-Alpha]

Oh great, now Autodesk has to buy XSI as well... :(

Why? Just to please MAX CAT users?
Please.

[Apoclypse]

If Softimage invented NLA i invented sliced bread. It was a concept already well known in the industry when XSI came out, think about Mirai for example.

And I thank you very much for that sliced bread. :).

[gocam]

Well it looks like greg is correct in that Softimage came out with first finished product to apply the non-linear concept to animation (Animation Sequencer) back in '97. But I'm fairly certain that the idea and even 'in house' proto-NLA type programs to handle motion capture data were in use before then.

Hi there -

First off, I think it's wonderful news that CAT is working with Softimage now - their technology and staff are very well respected, and there is seems to be great opportunity to improve the high-end rigging and character animation workflow within XSI through this relationship. There's great room for growth in the toolset and the number of talented people working in this area is now even higher !

Secondly, I'm one of the original authors of the animation mixer in XSI, and we were really trying to come up with a distinct way of mixing and layering motion using the same visual, interaction and UI concepts as present in non-linear editing (hence the acronym), expanding on what we'd done with the animation sequencer in Softimage|3D (and prior with special projects mixing tool) and trying to add a bunch of functionality to both allow new workflows for authoring, editing and tempering animation, trying to allow a way of combining motion from different sources, exploring ideas of data abstraction, encapsulation, transportability and non-destructability - again, so we could present motion in a way that would be familiar to those who have worked with video or audio clip editing systems. (And we tried to build this into the heart of the system as we were engineering XSI, and not as a tack-on)

At the time we were working on the first version, specific elements of high level animation layering functionality had certainly been exposed in products such as Hash and Mirai - and each of those products has its own particular strengths and deserve kudos - but our attempt was I think to create something a bit different, which is what I hope is clear if you use the various packages. Of course, many other systems have followed _since_ that time using motion mixer/non linear animation tags that have a very similar UI (Lightwave, Maya's Trax and such), as well as products that focus in different areas in particular very effectively (such as Kaydara's Filmbox)

I tried to summarize where I thought things had come from in a panel at SIGGRAPH in 2001 - slides here http://terra.cs.nps.navy.mil/DistanceEducation/online.siggraph.org/2001/Panels/08_NonLinearAnimationForProduction/cameron.pdf - one particularly exciting thing that came out of the whole NLA thing for me is that it provided a nice followup to something I'd been involved with a few years previously where i'd organized a panel on character animation and motion capture - one of the huge bones of contention there had been related to ability to combine motion from hand and offline sources and edit effectively - with the advent of these sort of NLA systems I think that world has become less of an either-or world .

Undoubtedly may studios have had their own implementation of certain systems to work with elements of motion abstraction, layering and blending, particularly games studios (e.g. EA and Japanese houses who pioneered motion tree game use) and even our own in-house special projects group at softimage. But in terms of a full blown non-linear animation system with the qualities I mention above, I think that soft was the first to come to market with a complete solution.

All these comments btw are very subjective !, I'm no longer at soft, many many people have worked on and improved the animation mixer technology and I don't aim to talk for any of the extremely talented folks still there, nor comment on whether what we did was successful/any good etc. But this is my memory of how things happened and I figured it might be worth sharing.

As a last piece of rambling - I remember spending a lot of time in [public] conversation with those at rival software companies where we were accused of trying to invent a term that either claimed responsibility for work done elsewhere (which we weren't trying to do at all!), or that we were inflating the importance of working with motion at an abstracted layer in this way (which we were absolutely trying to do, and the ubiquity of systems offering such functionality now I hope is testament to that pig-headedness in some way!)

In any case, sorry to ramble!

-gordon.

[shingo]

Hey Gordon,

Great to hear you again. Hope things are well with you. I stil lhave fond memories of your detailed e-mail reaplies on the XSI beta lists.

You still at PIXAR?

Hi there -

-gordon.

[punchatz]

Gordon! Great to see you posting again! Hows life in the Bay Area treating you?

I remember I was SUPOSED to be on that panel, but work got in the way. Are you going to SIG this year?

Third Eye since you invented slice bread will you send me a loaf of wheat? :)


Greg

[gocam]

Greg - really brilliant to hear from you, and so glad things are going so well with you these days !- sorry we didn't have chance to talk at SIGGRAPH - was nice to attend the Softimage user group and see the new work with animation layers exposed in the mixer. I'm excited to see how this can be further pushed, and perhaps allow some sort of synergy with the CAT technology.

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