Whats with the Lack of Softimage Users?

[StefanDidak]

Most of the user traffic goes through the various SI and XSI mailing lists, and of course XSI Base.

XSI users have grown accustomed to speed and efficiency and mailing lists fit right into that, actually... fast and efficient (more so than web-based boards). That's a good a reason as any for lack of being able to think of another. :)

[vmpre]

Lets also not forget that XSI has not been around as long as MAX and Lightwave.

Those apps didnt explode overnight either. It takes time to grow a user base.

I was actually thinking that this XSI group at CGTalk is growing quite a bit. I see more and more posts happening.

Stefan is right though. Most of the XSI traffic is on the XSI mailing list. Its not uncommon to get 100+ messages a day from the mailing list. I personally like that because the messages come to me, I dont have to go hunting for it.

Vmpre

[ggg]

i agree most are on the SI mail list and this site in its early days had more pro lightwave users, (I'm not sure when they added the SI forum compared to the others here.) the economy went to shit just as XSI was becoming a vaild production worthy app, schools following suit adopted Maya, and many XSI seats are replacement seats not new seats in production, the new user base hasn't significantly grown and many in production vs school or recent grad have less time to frequent forums.
just my 2 cents guess

[icedeyes]

And the price does play a certain role in the whole lack of users.. Even though i am an XSI user (and loving every minute of it), I think that lightwave and maya get a better value for money rating than xsi... XSI IS overpriced in my opinion... Even though it has a blistering fast workflow, it still lacks a coule of things and it is not THAT competitive for its price... I mean, being a former lightwave and maya user, those programs have pretty decent workflows, the lightwave renderer is top class (can't say the same for maya's) and maya has better dynamics than XSI... For the user base to grow IMO softimage has to reduce the price and add a couple of missing features.... Having said that, being a modeller mostly, i love XSI's workflow and i do believe that, in time, it will get the position that is suited for it in the market.... Just my opinion...

[Nurb'd]

I can only speak as a Maya user. My best friend decided to take the Softimage path. I envy him and XSI for some stuff. I think we all envy each other at some points. Making a model in XSI can be a honest to god treat. Doing dynamics in Maya though is priceless.

I think the delay in getting (the beta (forgot the name) took forever) XSI out cost them some users. People who went to maya instead of waiting. It let Maya open up a real lead. SI 3d was at the top before that.

Every review I have read about XSI has been very good. So clearly the package can stand up. I am just not so sure a house that has invested in Maya is willing to switch and even pay a little more. If they brought the price down...

LW is a very sweet deal at a little over 1k

[skello]

Also there are only a few schools that actually teach Xsi.
The current xsi community does not generate as much eye candy with xsi as the other communities do with their packages. As long as thats rectified more artists will fall in love with it.

[piajartist]

thanks for the valuable feedback

[Miyazaki]

Originally posted by piajartist
Just noticing that there are tens of thousands of threads for Lightwave, 3dsmax, and maya but there are less than 5,000 for Softimage. Don't these people know what they could be using,haha. Is it the price or something, are the others just more accessible? your thoughts here:airguitar
It`s the price, definitely the price. XSI has another target group than LW, Maya(Complete), C4D etc.. Maybe 99.999% !?!? of XSI-users are professionals. Nevertheless, Softimage should develop a "light" version of XSI like A|W did with Maya Complete. That would be fine :love:

[wmendez]

What you're referring to as light version is what Softimage is offering with Softimage 3D 4.0

[ggg]

if valid here's another good reason:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=366744#post366744

[Miyazaki]

Originally posted by wmendez
What you're referring to as light version is what Softimage is offering with Softimage 3D 4.0
SI3d isn`t realy a "light"-version of XSI, isn`t it? I`m not familiar with SI products, but I`ve read in an article (xsibase;) ) that there are many differences between the two and Avid/Softimage concentrates on developing XSI. Perhaps SI3d will not be supported in the future,especially when the actual main customers are changing for XSI. Not to forget that the SI3d-community is small.
:thumbsdow

[Nurb'd]

SI3D is not a proper light version. Taking out some of the unique aspects of XSI would be a true light version.

[frumpy_bunyin]

Is it the price though?

How many of you actually own the software? Or any of it? I can not afford to buy XSI, Maya, shake, or any of the software I use and I can not say I'm interested in much else. To buy something cheap for home would just give me the shits.

I know it's a consideration for companies, but it was never a question of price for me.

FB

[Nurb'd]

"To buy something cheap for home would just give me the shits."

You are right with the above post. I use Maya at work and do not actually own it. I had no choice but to buy LW for home. Do not get me wrong.. I really enjoy LW but it is a world of difference. Oh well

I do have a pretty good nest egg building though. To be honest.. I think when I am ready I will be getting XSI for home and not Maya. The time I had with XSI left a very good impression


:shrug:

[orion 77]

lol thats what i was thinkin b4. so few xsi users and its the price. what versions are there? advanced, enterprise and basic?

[Mazer]

Price, Price, Price and ...... Price .
:shrug:

Whoever is serious enough about 3d to know what Xsi is, or take the time to learn it (I meen its not like is popularzz like Max or Hollywood hyped like Maya... everione who plays quake and sees Lotr or Final Fantasy knows this two by name at least...), is not going to setle on warez, they whant the real thing they aspire to be professionals, and 7000$ is overpriced...almost 5 times the price of Lightwave and for the cut down vertion....I meen... it has advatages over Lw but 5 times? There is no way a particular with a thight budgect could justify this puchace, its more a Luxury than anything, like going to work everiday in a Ferrary, its cool, its fast, it may get you there faster in no trafic, but in the end its stupid option if you spend all your wage putin fuel on the car...
Since we dont have to buy sgi workstations to do 3d anymore, its hard to justify these prices.

Highend is dead, get real!

And I think that getting in the big studios is even harder since they are maya based for a lond time and it would meen rebuilding all the pipelines and propietary tools, train the staff, etc.. Also no Mtor for Xsi yet.

The strong point of Xsi may be in my opinion in medium sized studios for bradcast or games.

[withanar]

I don't mind at all that XSI costs 5 times as much as Lightwave. I also don't mind that a nice BMW costs 5 times as much as a Honda Civic. There's a big enough market out there for both types of cars, and both car companies are doing just fine. Meanwhile, both cars will get you from A to B just fine.

On the other hand, the car analogy falls short when it comes to commercial 3D production and potential cashflow. When you consider that you can get a client to pay $50k for a job one 3D artist can finish in XSI in 2 weeks, that $7k doesn't seem like such a big deal. But consider further that what if XSI's refined workflow allowed your artist to finish 1 more job a year than would have been possible with a different production tool? That investment would be well worthwhile, I think.

What if your production capacity actually increased by 30%? If one artist had levelled out at 18 jobs a year but could suddenly edge his way up to 24 jobs a year... at $50k a pop, that $7k software investment just grossed you $300k, a 428% return on your investment. These numbers aren't unrealistic. Since we moved over to XSI where I work, our productivity has steadily increased over the course of 30 months such that we're now twice as efficient as we were 2.5 years ago. I'm pretty entrenched in the XSI community, and the production houses I've seen make the switch have experienced similar gains.

Our direct competitors have also started using XSI. Unfortunately, (for my bosses anway) that "high end" pricetag wasn't enough to scare them away. Nor has it been enough to scare away most of the big game production companies. It also hasn't scared away ILM, or the Mill, or Riot, or Animal Logic, or Stan Winston.

Fortunately, Softimage the company seems to be pretty healthy right now, so they didn't price themselves out of the game just yet. There's already a widening gap between big studios and their proprietary 3D tools versus what the rest of us get to use. Because of this, the rest of us still need "high end", expensive 3D programs to keep pushing R&D, and to keep some of our jobs "high end", professional, and earning respectable wages.

[ggg]

I knew of the houses you mentioned had XSI and was told many of the seats of XSI replaced seats of SI3D,

Its good news to hear someone directly saying their company switched to xsi as did some of their competitors

Did your company switch from SI|3D or maya or other?

[ggg]

The high end is not dead :rolleyes: except for hobbyists and students believing they've got the same with a more affordable off the shelf piece of software and affordable PC.
Why would anyone want to dumb down and commodify their field? Wheres the pride and understanding of developement in that?

[Lunatique]

I'm a current Maya user, and I must confess, I've been using XSI in secret. Shhh...........

[Mazer]

Because of this, the rest of us still need "high end", expensive 3D programs to keep pushing R&D, and to keep some of our jobs "high end", professional, and earning respectable wages.

You need expensive programs to be professionals and to earn respectable wages ? I'm sorry I thought it was all about tallent :shrug: . Is Maya less professional and capable now than wen it costed a fortune? Remember how Hig hend it was then? I meen, I understand it was psycologicaly hard do point faults on something you paid 10k... see how its bashed right now? From the almost mythic opinion about it, now everione assumes that it has a crapy renderer...

I understand that some people are nervous,people who have entered this area a long time ago, wen learning software whas very expenssive, but at the same time a certain entry into the industry, is now suffering the the competition of so many artists that finaly have a chance to do 3d.
The high hend era is dead. Its not about software or hardware anymore, its about talent. And yes, the average wages are dropping, but that is an inevitable consequence of the industry maturing, not so mutch of the price drops, if all packages costed 1000k people would simply learn and work comercialy with warez, there is a thing called internet now you now?

For those who want to be in an elite, the only way is to become an elite artist.that will get you good wages.

About the productivity of Xsi: I've heard about-it, 30% over maya mostly because of not having to use external renderers I presume, and maybe the animation tools but this is an area i dont master, it must be true I dont discuss it but comparing it with Lw is another thing, Lw is fast as hell in production, hask any artist with experience. It may fall back in CA but for the rest its realy hard to beat.

Also not everyone charges 50K for a job.... I'm not sayng that this is too mutch it deppends on the job, but this post is about extending the user base, and most of the users wanabe cant charge that for a job. For those artists the math is like this:
I have 7000$ to spend..
If I buy Lw:
I pay1500$, have everithing i need to get the job done... That leaves me, 5500$ so I can buy some books an trayning lessons, ooops they already gave me those, so I can try this stuff called Messiah, 500$ its a luxury but hell, I can do it.
This leaves me 5000$ let buy some computers to increase my render pipeline.That can at least save me 30 to 40 % of my prodution time :beer:. Lets say I spent 3000$.
That leaves me 2000$ to buy render nodes.. Hey wait... I dont need render nodes they gave me those and for Linux!
I'm taking my 2000$ and going to Amsterdam for... research... :cool:

If I buy Xsi:
I pay 6XXX$ (dont know exactly they must be afraid to tell it on they webpage)

Cool I have Xsi! I have alsmost everithing to get the job done fast(if i dont need the advanced tools.....) , too bad I cant render all this cool stuff in time...
And MEN I realy need some vacations :annoyed: ...

[Lunatique]

Mazer- Hahahah. That was pretty funny. :D

(I'm not agreeing or disagreeing.)

[orion 77]

hehe lol. yeah its so true when you lookat lightwave. its fast and everything is there plus its sooo cheap for what you get.
I had to use maya at uni and i found it had a slow workflow for me. i dont like the environment plus that renderer is crap.
xsi does need to come down in price.
what version dosent include the liquid dynamics and compositor.

Although you get the whole bunch with xsi whereas lw needs sasquatch and dynamics plugins. and some people use messiah. maya needs a renderer to improve its consistency.
max needs them all. So maybe xsi is good long term value.
so xsi is only suitable for large studios - which only count for about 10% of the market. What about the other 90% who have an average income of 35k ?

[JDex]

Another major advantage of Softimage is its direct ties to Avid and ProTools. These are the industry standards and many studios are likely seeing a good ROI potential by consolidating their applications servicing. If I was about to by an avid editing system and multiple protools stations but was considering getting maya, softimage would certainly be happy to throw in a few XSI seats, a better service plan and maybe some training to sweeten the deal and lock themselves into a well-rounded relationship.

Anyone wanna invest a few hundred grand so I can learn XSI for free? jklol

[raffael3d]

I totally agree wtih withanar.
Also don't forget the R&D, his is very expensive, thanks to that Softimage has been always a driving force.

I disagree that the worfklow in LightWave is fast. I usedd it for 3 years and also though that it is fast, BUT once I touched XSI the LW worfklow is quite slow and you realize that many things are not solved well. You always get into an import/export between Modeler and Layout and try to find workarounds because of that limitations. XSI is straightofward. I started to think very quickly when I still used LightWave: why can't LightWave it handle that way?
LW is a good software and you can create amazing results, but in terms of worklow it can't compete with XSI.

LW is good for it's price, definitely, but once you know both you see how big the differece between them really is and that the price difference actually makes sense. Maybe to make the Essentials version cheaper would be cool.

[Nurb'd]

This post is quickly turning into a uneducated diatribe

:rolleyes:

Maya's native render is far from crap. The ONLY reason it got that image was compared to renderman it is crap. So is lightwaves, so is many others. Warez people call it crap because they do not have the will or desire to learn it. Alias|wavefront is "working" on totally taking advantage of mental ray. Look up some work on this site done with Maya's "crap" native render.

Maya's workflow is slow to those who can not remember more then 10 shortcuts. Those who can not understand how shelves work. It may not be the fastest but it is far from slow. LW should be faster since it does not have half the modeling tools. It does not have nurbs. What do you expect?

Max needs them all? lol. Max has the most resources "free" of them all. Max is so entrenched in gaming houses it will take a long time to pry them out. Ever check out sales? Who is leading? Yes, Discreet is doing so bad they sell masses. Max V.5's native render was improved a lot. They have Brazil, FinalRender, VRay, and free render programs. Man O Man. They copied a lot from XSI and Maya. If someone came to me and said "pick one program that you think will be standing at the end of the day" I would reply with Max. Huge company, huge resources, and a product that copies all the latest hot buzz. I do not like it but it sales more then most.

As a LW owner I hate to touch on it. Very bad vibes though on longterm direction. The company is starting to resemble lower end practices. 7 or 7.5 has been out what? a year? and no news on 8. The big thing awhile back with Luxology claiming to own LW credit. I am not going to go through it all but if you want you can find information on newteks forum. The whole very nice practices now. Contests, tuts, sending company people to make nice with lw users. The big price drop and the huge deal on the included learning package. It is almost like they are doing anything they can to get you to buy it. Good software should sell itself. Not a good way to produce consumer confidence. Nothing happens without a reason.

Withanar ... if what you say is true then everyone would be using houdini. 17k

[Nurb'd]

Originally posted by raffael3d
I totally agree wtih withanar.
Also don't forget the R&D, his is very expensive, thanks to that Softimage has been always a driving force.

I disagree that the worfklow in LightWave is fast. I usedd it for 3 years and also though that it is fast, BUT once I touched XSI the LW worfklow is quite slow and you realize that many things are not solved well. You always get into an import/export between Modeler and Layout and try to find workarounds because of that limitations. XSI is straightofward. I started to think very quickly when I still used LightWave: why can't LightWave it handle that way?
LW is a good software and you can create amazing results, but in terms of worklow it can't compete with XSI.

LW is good for it's price, definitely, but once you know both you see how big the differece between them really is and that the price difference actually makes sense. Maybe to make the Essentials version cheaper would be cool.

well I will agree with one thing

any workflow gained is killed by having modeler/layout seperate

at the price right now though it is a steal.... not so sure about future direction though


-- edit - and dont forget that r&d is what cost Avid a lot of customers. How many people did they lose to Maya taking FOREVER to come out with XSI?

[Mazer]

Please note that I said people "assumes" maya renderer is crapy, I dont think it is. It is however way behind Lw renderer, thats why so many places use Lw to render Maya animations.
Renderman is another realm, you cant compare-it with Lw, its not a raytracer by nature,this only was introduced in 11, they had to use Bmrt to raytrace some scenes, and its strongest point is also the reason it isn't a solution for small studios with thight deadlines- Shaders its all about shaders, you need a specific team to take advantage of it. I agree though that Mental ray beats Lw wen integrated in Xsi.

R&D ? Yep AW drop that with the price drop.... thats why they have fluid dinamics now...

About the lw plugs, if you need them, just dont go to Amsterdam and buy Sashquash, g2 and Impact, but those are more luxuries than needs for most people.

I must agree that I'm a little nervous about Lw future but they always gave us surprises, so...

In the end I think Xsi is great, and realy inovating in some cases but that doesn't meem its worth 5x more than Lw or Maya.
Thats just marketing, nothing more, the market has changed its that simple and now they realy need to hype it up to sell.

[ThE_JacO]

Mazer: well aside from the fact that i enjoyed your post (altho i'm not sure i'd choose Amsterdam to spend holydays in or you'll get back more devastated then when you left) I think you should reconsider a bit the productivity issue.
let's premise I'm a Softimage Demo artist, so my opinion is biased, unreliable, marketable and whatever else you feel it is :)

Let's talk about a single user, let alone larger studios.
i buy LW, i need to manage my databases... good luck
XSI: on a very cheap sandbox (celeron with any window OS) with IIS i can write some fairly simple asp pages.
now i can, in XSI, manage everything reading and writing html pages with simple scripts and load and manage scenes thru the netview.

a cheap customer asks for a very simple thing like animating a wire appearing... well i would just animate the modeling operations.. oh nevermind, the modeler is still separated.

ok, i want to write some scripts, fairly simple stuff, now let's see how many standard languages i can choose from... oh nevermind.. non compileable (not straight away like perl at least) custom language instead of standard VBscript or Jscript or python or perl...

I need some NLA.. well i can just.. oh wait i have to open YET ANOTHER INTERFACE to have it, and yet it doesn't really compare (but let's avoid direct feature2feature comparisons or we'll never get outta it :)

ok the customer asked for some fairly simple stuff, a few displacement maps here and there and.... ops.. no displacement mapping that can compare to MRay's.

I need to manage split passes and overrides... nevermind i'm using the wrong app, i'll need to save several scenes.

Particles shot, i need a man completely made by particles (say a few hundreds of thousands of them) walking (particles weighted to bones) and then collapsing into dust, and i need it without custom coding.

I need a massive shot, i can make the big jump on a good customer, now where can i buy a crowd simulator.. nowhere :)

there are several more points i could raise about what real flexibility and production proven features are all about, and all of the above is without considering the advanced version, else compositing would come into play and it would be a whole different ball game.
Don't think I'm here to bash on LW or on your post (that i found a quite interesting POV), i love LW, I'v been a LW user for a long while, i think it has one of the best comunities around and it's still the best application out there value for money. the Newtek guys deserve all my respect, but you need to broaden your views a bit.

If you think all of the above (database management, basic scripting, massive particles scenes, event driven elements and the such) does not apply to Joe Average (or to you) then you are limiting yourself.
The good thing about XSI is the space it gives you to grow in, it allows to the user to grow up, be worth more professionaly, aim at high end stuff even in commercials or small jobs (have a look at what Mill and La Maison can do with very few operators in a matter of 30 days deadlines).
All of the above is R&D time YOU spend on your figure, to give the user an application that allows him his own R&D you need LOTS of R&D behind that application, and for that you need money.
The money tho are well spent, they aren't invested in TVspots, freaky ad campaigns and suicidal offers (at the price of firing half your R&D stuff).
They are spent on the support needed to respect deadlines (it's not uncommon that less then 24hrs after a customer reports me a problem i'm sending him back a fixed scene or a custom script)
It's spent on R&D (less then 10 months after 2.0.1 a v3 with massive amounts of worthwhile features is released and development is getting even faster now) and it's spent on tours and seminars.

and now, since i love to contradict myself, the things i ENVY to LW.
voxels, prolly the best around
some fire and forget effects (like bloom), altho when i come to think of it i never needed any of those in production, and if i did i'd rather resort to compositing all the same, they are danm nifty
its comunity, still pretty good and resourceful despite being huge.

LW matteroffactly IS a great application, and so others as well have their strenghts, but there still is a high end and a need for applications that will take care of that niche.
If XSI or houdini (the only 2 apps left priced over 4k) halved their prices do you think they would sell twice the new licenses from the very first month ? and even if that, unlikely, eventuality took place... support, to remain of the same quality, would need twice the human resources, MNT quotes would have to drop as well and lots of other issues.

Halving the price would create the need to sell 3 times the
licenses sold now just to make the same profit, and that's not going to happen that easily. And sooner or later you end up exhausting all your possible markets, and then you have no other solution but closing half the R&D and enter stasis, until someone else takes over your market and becomes "more high-end" and starts developing faster then you do.

life is never simple :)

[Mazer]

Nice post The_jaco , they train you well:applause: (just kiding)

I wont reply point to point to it, I'll just say that, for me, knowing xsi from the experience Cd, there is not enought advantages in it to justify the diference in price. The same appens to many others or this thread wouldn't existed in the first place.

It would be nice to see a Lw demo artist reply to your post thought..... Proton? Splinegod?:rolleyes:

[ThE_JacO]

well the point isn't really about "XSI is better then LW", it's more about pointing out the obvious differences.
I also could agree that to you it's not worth the difference (yet, maybe ;) in price, and i can understand;as I understand this applies to lots of other people; but to some people it IS worth the difference, hell to some people RenderMan is worth spending almost half a million bucks on a middle sized farm :)

it's all about a company, whatever it's softimage or newtek or sideFX, to find its own identity and target markets, users and for God's sake taking care of them adequately.

insofar XSI re-sales (getting back old users) are doing extremely well, and new sales sure are doing well too.
It's maybe not mass marketed yet, and it doesn't want to be; but for its targeted markets it is evolving the way the actual most important user basis wants (including the potential UB not only the contracted UB) , and this user basis is what kept SI alive, so they come first :)

edit: disabled the smilies, i hate them

[ggg]

Good point and well put The Jaco, its about target markets, scaled production, and timing.

The same arguement can be made about sidefx and further, Lowering Houdinis price would likely not amount to enough new sales to support the R&D required by those highend users and its current price and unique abilites in certain areas for specific markets justifies its price.

Just trying out an experience CD is not a proper evaluation except for maybe use by an indivudual for personal production, hobbyist or student.

You can see the desire to have a high end pushing the envelope as elitist but I see this effort as inspirational.

[ggg]

here's some various and opposing views on highend and mass marketing and R&D
highend3dbuzz (http://www.highend3d.com/boards/showflat.php?Cat=1,3&Board=thebuzz&Number=136790&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=)

[UserDelta]

im replying to this only because i think the comments from the_jac0 are are a bit... rediculous and funny. im not saying there arent some points in there
but the points that were made are rather lame, imho, dont take it personally. i just think there are other more valid points and important points that make xsi more powerful with regard to consistency, animation, etc... from what ive read, many of the comments go by just simply stating the advantages while ignoring disadvantages.
these were my thoughts to the comments :)

*wow, i can open and edit web pages in xsi now?! thats amazing!*

" well i would just animate the modeling operations.. oh nevermind, the modeler is still separated." *aww i guess that makes it too difficult for you*

"i want to write some scripts, fairly simple stuff, now let's see how many standard languages i can choose from... oh nevermind"
*maybe you can get one of the l-script newbies on newteks forum to write something for you. and lets not talk about the quality and quantaty of scripts for lw, most likely its already written and you can get it for free*

*oh my god. theres another interface for NLA in lightwave? thats horrrible, its gotta suck... *maybe you can get another monitor**

"customer asked for some fairly simple stuff, a few displacement maps here and there and.... ops.. no displacement mapping that can compare to MRay's." *heh, what a great point! every other renderer really sucks. maybe lw's Unlimited network rendering licenses will make up for that*

"I need to manage split passes and overrides... nevermind i'm using the wrong app" *lw is pathetic, it cant do shit! hehh maybe if you're cheap you get some scripts or plugins, and dont talk like you dont have any additional scripts or plugins for xsi*

but some later points i can agree with. i have no doubt that xsi is awesome but dont act like it does everything perfectly

[ThE_JacO]

well i was expecting a reply of that kind.

the points i was making were pretty basic examples NOT of betterVSworse features, you'll never catch me saying something bad about LW, simply because i'v used it and i know it's good at doing a lot of things.

It was more to point out the radical differences in workflow and implementation, XSI has been built since day0 to be a solid allround and consistant application, relying on diffused and common standards for scripting, asset management, gizmos/GUIhelpers (see synoptic views).

btw if you think netview is just like having IE open with "always on top" active you are far away from its potential, same goes for the additional interfaces matter (it's about consistancy and implementation not about monitor real-estate).

this is about all i have to say, it wasn't meant to be an app2app comparison or a 3Dapp pissing contest, i just brought a LW example up since it's been mentioned a lot and because it's on the opposite side of the wall when price tags are argued.
it was meant to be a non-marketing explanation of why XSI's pricetag is what it is and why the actual customers who bought it hardly ever argue about it and keep renewing their MNT contracts.

lights out.

[UserDelta]

all together, you do make a point that it is a well designed program. a lot of user fustration comes from inconsistency in design, i admit. so its an important factor to consider. but then thats also part of the price you pay :)

[Nurb'd]

Maya complete is 5 times less but Maya unlimited is $6,999 so I am not sure where everyone is getting that from. Fluid, Cloth, Fur, Live are all things you will not get with complete. Things that studios used for those movies everyone like to rave about.

Houdini is 17k but look at what they are doing to try to get people interested.

Having had a chance to use XSI it is more interesting to me then Maya. You have to keep it in perspective though. I do not need the super open-ended mel system like a big house does. I do not need the better then XSI dynamics.

I would argue that LW's render is that much better. It is easier then Maya's native render and you can get better quality quicker. All the big studios use renderman anyway so ...

I will wait a little longer and see what NewTek is doing with version 8 of LW. If it is not a nice step forward then my hard earned and saved $ will go to one single seat of XSI. Some people save up to buy a big TV or a $ radio so ...

[ThE_JacO]

Originally posted by UserDelta
all together, you do make a point that it is a well designed program. a lot of user fustration comes from inconsistency in design, i admit. so its an important factor to consider. but then thats also part of the price you pay :)

ok i'm glad the point got across, only 2 posts to do it is quite reasonable, way less then what it would have taken on other generic forums at least :)

now since the discussion was about users, or the lack of thereof, i'm outta this loop; i think i drove it OT enuf

[orion 77]

lol i take it that was a dig at me nurb'd?
my experience is very educated as i had to use maya on my degree for 2 years.
and in comparison to xsi to cinmea 4d the maya renderer is poor indeed. hell the native softimage renderer is tripe too
and since alias are packaging mental ray with maya then thats gonna solve its major flaw.
so the lack of xsi users is due to price when compared to lw as it is a fantastic all rounder nufff said. And if ur a single freelancer/small studio which u gonna choose. After all its the artist not the software.
Now in my personal opinion xsi is the best 3d app by miles but theres little support
very few books (call newriders!!!)
courses (mostly usa)
dedicated sites (xsi base thats it)
community is small (when compared to lw)
these would bring more users dont you think?

[orion 77]

lol according to the lw forum dan ablan is doing an xsi book so maybe things are changing.;)

[Nurb'd]

Originally posted by orion 77
lol i take it that was a dig at me nurb'd?
my experience is very educated as i had to use maya on my degree for 2 years.
and in comparison to xsi to cinmea 4d the maya renderer is poor indeed. hell the native softimage renderer is tripe too
and since alias are packaging mental ray with maya then thats gonna solve its major flaw.
so the lack of xsi users is due to price when compared to lw as it is a fantastic all rounder nufff said. And if ur a single freelancer/small studio which u gonna choose. After all its the artist not the software.
Now in my personal opinion xsi is the best 3d app by miles but theres little support
very few books (call newriders!!!)
courses (mostly usa)
dedicated sites (xsi base thats it)
community is small (when compared to lw)
these would bring more users dont you think?

I disagree about the render. I have used it myself as well as seen plenty of quality come out of it. When I first used it I thought "what the hell is this?".. after about 3 weeks I changed my tune but hey.. we can disagree right? Including mental ray will indeed change the picture. Right now though mental ray in maya has a lot of work to be done.

The point was had Avid not taking dang near three years to release XSI then they would have not lost so much of their user base. I mean if Alias|wavefront took 3 years then I am sure they would be miles ahead as well. The question is in the end will people move back or care? Almost every single ex-Softimage 3d person I have talked directly bring that up as the primary reason. They could not compete with Maya using a program aging as Softimage 3d was. You are already starting to hear rumbles from die hard LW users because Newtek has not released solid info on LW 8. It has only been what.. a year? Comparing a user base of LW to XSI is stupid to begin with. Different markets and of course over-all you can round it off as price. That is not what I hear some people saying though. Avid lost some of their own user base and that is what I am sure some people are worried about. Compare schools/users from when they had SoftImage 3d out to now with XSI.

Sure it is the artist and not the software but are you going to say that you can do anything with LW that can be done with Maya or XSI? I would argue that till I am blue in the face. The end product is of course a result of the artist but if you do not have the tools then you do not have the tools. You can do stunning work with LW/MAX/Cinema4d sure but I know you get my drift. If you are in a small-mid studio and LW can produce what you need then of course you go for LW. How many studios have you seen start out with LW/Max and make something big and next think you know they have moved the pipeline to Maya/XSI? A bunch and why do we think thst is? Just because they can afford it and like to spend money? nah

Dynamics in Maya are better and what do people in "hollow"wood use a lot? Scripting in mel is better. It gives so much control and we know how studios crave that. I agree for the most part XSI is better and that is why I will be buying me a seat as soon as I can. All I am saying is everything is not so black and white. Sure for 80% price and support are major factors. No dout about it they would bring more users. More people would save up and invest in XSI.

And to the guy talking about 50k a contract as a single user... if that was the case you would see everyone using XSI. People would take out loans just to get it. Some very talented exceptional person might get 50k on a single freelance project but I am sure that is far from the norm.

[Nurb'd]

Originally posted by orion 77
lol according to the lw forum dan ablan is doing an xsi book so maybe things are changing.;)

lol "inside XSI" .. actually Dan has been a long time SoftImage fan I hear. Just more books could be sold with LW.

as for NewTek future

http://www.cgchannel.com/forum/viewthread?thread=229

:shrug:

[withanar]

The point was had Avid not taking dang near three years to release XSI then they would have not lost so much of their user base. I mean if Alias|wavefront took 3 years then I am sure they would be miles ahead as well. The question is in the end will people move back or care? Almost every single ex-Softimage 3d person I have talked directly bring that up as the primary reason. They could not compete with Maya using a program aging as Softimage 3d was.

This is less an Avid issue and more of a Microsoft issue. Microsoft was more interested in porting everything to NT, and in developing DS. This thread has been thoroughly discussed in the past, so no need to go into details. However, Avid's purchase of Softimage turned out to be a good thing because they took a more hands off approach to managing Softimage the company. They also had enough patience and trust to weather an extended development period, despite Softimage's shrinking market share, in the hopes of producing something above and beyond. XSI's rapid development cycle is one fruit of that investment.


Comparing a user base of LW to XSI is stupid to begin with. Different markets and of course over-all you can round it off as price. That is not what I hear some people saying though. Avid lost some of their own user base and that is what I am sure some people are worried about. Compare schools/users from when they had SoftImage 3d out to now with XSI.


It would be interesting to see what has happened with XSI's user base compared to SI|3D. When SI|3D was in its prime, 3D software and hardware was in the process of price reduction, thus bringing 3D animation tools to many more potential users than ever before. There are still plenty of studios out there happily using SI|3D as a niche pipeline tool. Meanwhile, there are also plenty of houses using or starting to use XSI. Since the market is so much larger now, Softimage's market share may be lower than the glory days, but they may actually have more users now. Judging by the size of user groups and participation level on the mailing lists, it seems as such.


Sure it is the artist and not the software but are you going to say that you can do anything with LW that can be done with Maya or XSI? I would argue that till I am blue in the face. The end product is of course a result of the artist but if you do not have the tools then you do not have the tools.


Agreed! This is a common argument, and I'm surprised at how many people take the side of "it's ALL about the artist and NEVER about the tools." Oddly enough, I find it's mostly, but not all, students who cling to this argument. Of course the artist is the most important aspect, and a top notch artist would most likely be able to create images of great quality using any of the 3D apps with any of the available rendering technologies, if given enough time. But "time" is the important concept. In a high stakes, high pressure production environment, time is not on your side. And if tool A gets the same artist to those beautiful images faster than tool B, then the tool matters a lot.

And then there's also the tweaking phase of the job, which sometimes can be more challenging and/or timeconsuming than the meat and potatos production phase. If tool A allows the artist to tweak more things more easily than tool B, than the tool matters a lot. It's the tweaking phase where workflow is most important, and it's also the tweaking phase where client interaction is most prevalent. This is why clients are still willing to pay big rates for real time editing and special effects, and why many production facilities will still invest hundreds of thousands on Flames* and Infernos* when Shake and Illusion can do it for so much less.


And to the guy talking about 50k a contract as a single user... if that was the case you would see everyone using XSI. People would take out loans just to get it. Some very talented exceptional person might get 50k on a single freelance project but I am sure that is far from the norm.

I wasn't referring to single users doing these kinds of contracts, though I know a few who do. I was referring to numbers which aren't uncommon for a high end post production facility. Places such as these are small to medium-sized houses, and for every ILM or PIXAR, there are dozens of such places.

[Nurb'd]

I can not really disagree

In the end Avid does own a very exceptional piece of software. The rapid devolpment cycle is part of the reason I will be purchasing a seat.

I thought you were talking about a single user working freelance/my bad

[wmendez]

Dan Ablan uses LW3D and has just added XSI to his toolset as well. He runs his own studio and uses the right tool for the right job you can read why XSI caught his eye here

http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=16

Each Apps has it's strong point, Softimage cost more than other apps but is not hurting financially from that and I don't expect them to drop the price anytime soon.

The 3 years that they were developing Sumatra or what is now XSI hurt them but in return is what is making them stronger now, they have a solid product and have been releasing updates at a pace unheard of, Newtek is doing the same but sorry to say not with Lightwave but with the Video Toaster (which I own). As a former waver I know the Luxology VS Newtek thread all to well and have voiced it so much that I got even got a call from the CEO from Newtek

I have since became the XSI Ambassador and have not looked back. XSI Advance is a powerful app straight out the box which is why you see little plugin developers for it. LW is very dependant on plugins if you want to test this theory out go to your /Newtek/lightwave/folder and rename the plugins folder to pluginstest start lightwave or modeler about 80% of your functions are gone.

Softimage is dedicated to their user base and customers which fit a certian criteria at the moment. studios are completing jobs at a faster rate due to XSI's features and workflow.

To make things simple here's a little scenario:

If MAYA, LW, & XSI were all priced the same which one would you buy?

[Nurb'd]

cool, that clears up a lot of untrue rumors

thanks for the link

oh and to the answer.. I would buy XSI

[orion 77]

hey some good points nurb'd.
when mentioning the artist not software points its just that there are loads of people who assume they would create better work using maya cos the pro's use it and it costs more than lw for example.
From my perspective the high end has gone and you have five main players.
xsi, maya, max, lw and cinema 4d.
i dont know whether its wrong to compare them all but they aim to do the same job at the end of the day - cg and animation.

And now my question has been very well answered!
Why should I buy softimage?
1 strong all rounder
2 workflow
3 avid is commited to development

why shouldnt I buy softimage
1 not much suport from all areas ie games

And propobably lots of other for and againsts that I cant be bothered typing.:hmm:

[Nurb'd]

well orion I agree with that 100%

No one should be fooled into thinking you can grab Maya and be a artist. If anything it is a much bigger learning curve. You have many more tools but at the same time that is many more tools you have to learn. You can do more but you have to learn more.

So while you can get complete for 1,999 it is not like picking up LW or Cinema4d. In a month in LW you might have made some semi nice stuff while in Maya you may have just figuered out all the modeling tools.

I had been saving a long time to purchase Maya Unlimited for home use. It was not until someone dared me to try out his XSI till I decided to look around. XSI is VERY impressive and for the home user.. you can do much more faster then Maya and that is very attractive in my case. I work with Maya most of the week so learning XSI can only help.

For someone starting out LW is more then enough. You can do amazing things with it. I loved it and it more then helped me learn 3d in a very soft atmosphere.

:wavey:

[orion 77]

Lol were starting to agree, I get your point about lw. I started to feel cocky like there wasnt much else i couldnt do. even though i hadnt i knew i could.
So im gonna go for the big guns for a change. even though im applying for a job with a games company using max (tut tut) but i need the experience.
I was gonna get cinema 4d as its such a good bargain and cheap but what the hell.
its xsi or a car!!!

[StefanDidak]

Originally posted by orion 77

its xsi or a car!!!

Then ask yourself... what will potentially allow you to earn money.... XSI, or a car... :)

[Nurb'd]

Originally posted by orion 77
Lol were starting to agree, I get your point about lw. I started to feel cocky like there wasnt much else i couldnt do. even though i hadnt i knew i could.
So im gonna go for the big guns for a change. even though im applying for a job with a games company using max (tut tut) but i need the experience.
I was gonna get cinema 4d as its such a good bargain and cheap but what the hell.
its xsi or a car!!!

:p

Good luck on the job.

[ggg]

Originally posted by StefanDidak
Then ask yourself... what will potentially allow you to earn money.... XSI, or a car... :)
hmmm, better in some places like LA and other US cities but honestly I think well actually know that I can more an hour around here with a car.

[orion 77]

lol well lets list pros with car:
1 chicks prefer a ride
2 have sex in back (still live at home)
3 drive to work
cons
1 insurance
2 road tax
3 mot
4 crash and repairs
5 more going out than in on car

xsi
pros
1 cool
2 fast
3 impress girlfriend with my skill in making a model of her
4 xsi on cv gets u into holywood movies easier (raise eyebrow)

cons
1 cost
2 might not get much support and could fail (raise eyebrow again)

[StefanDidak]

Originally posted by orion 77
lol well lets list pros with car:


I admit the pro's of the car might sound good, but (and I can't resist)... do please consider;

1... get a girl/woman with her own car !
2... sex in a back seat... is just plain awkward, you need someone with a place of her own.
3... get XSI, grow skills, get job, get nicer car, then drive to work.

Reminds me of an Alice Cooper song... "Can't get a job 'cause I ain't got a car, can't get a car 'cause I ain't got a job, can't get a girl 'cause I ain't got a car..." :)

[JDex]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I admit the pro's of the car might sound good, but (and I can't resist)... do please consider;

1... get a girl/woman with her own car !
2... sex in a back seat... is just plain awkward, you need someone with a place of her own.
3... get XSI, grow skills, get job, get nicer car, then drive to work.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I think it goes like this...

1. Get a freaky chick with a car and an apartment.
2. Have sex everywhere you can.
3. Get XSI, grow skills, get job, get house, get real nice car, find another freaky chick, have threeway in nice car during drive to work.

:cool:
Sounds like a plan, someone should make a CGI flick about that.

[StefanDidak]

Originally posted by JDex
Sounds like a plan, someone should make a CGI flick about that.

I think you've just summed up the concept of a new Softimage ad campaign... :)

[piajartist]

That flick would catch my interest!

[orion 77]

:cool: hehehe lmao that would be one funny advert. xsi would get at least 25% sales increase lol.

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