Autodesk Signs Agreement with Avid Technology to Acquire Softimage

#201

I`m sure modo will grow into fine challenger in the future! : )
Damndamnitall!

#202

Can you see my finger? F*****k you Autodesk! That is the worst day of the CG History in my opinion. end of inovation.

Acquisition to Accelerate Autodesk’s Games Strategy; Complements Digital Entertainment and Visual Communications Offering; Lets Artists Choose their Passion

kidding??? They just could bought nothing… And still let the artist decide.

#203

This is not a good thing, but sure there are some good points, avid was going the tubes and ad ‘saved’ xsi, and yes there will be some interpolation issues resolved, But, is those 2 points worth being brought by a huge company like AD, in my opinion no,

As interpolation can be archeived in any studio or and artist just the flow back and forth needs to be determined and worked on, for example i use houdini to get modeling and simulations done, then i export that into a format, then import into blender to render/sim(fluids cloth , fluids because i hate particle based fluids, and cloth is far better results and easier to use).

But i truly see inovation in the 3d feild being done by large apps slowing down, but studioes and the OpenSource worlds will still become inovative as the features needed are being developed even slower. has face it the onlty real inovation out of AD is neucleus, the rest of the new features has been ‘inspired’ by other apps.

furthur more, those who have copies of XSi will be locked out as commonly like with motion builder versions before the aquisition will not be able to be used as licenses cannot be renewed

and on that note, due to the sudden decrease in competition (there still is competition just not alot) there is no need to set prices at a competitive level, prices/fees will indeed go up. this will also be componded by the current finacial state of the world.

on another note i also feel ad sights are exceding its grasp soon it will collapse under the heavy weight of all these aquisitions but i wouldn’t hold your breath.

so in summary
-is this aquisition really worth interpolation issues being resolved , no
-innovation will continue but on the Opensource world and studio level
-i fear older copies will be locked out
-prices will go up
-ad might be exceding its grasp

sorry for the long post, had to be polite and calm about this

#204

Well i have to say, it is slightly disheartning to me, see unfortunatly MAX which i used professionally for five years didnt have the power to do what we needed to do commercial wise, in fact i was quoted many years ago by a 3DS rep that “No our software cant do that but Digimation has a plugin that you can purchase that will help you” The idea that we had to buy another piece of software to finish a time limited project sucked, in fact in order to do things in MAX we had to purchase about $5000.00 worth of different plugins to get one job done and then there were somethings we just couldn’t do, Thats when we switched to SI not XSI at the time my team loved it, of course when XSI Sumatra was released or version one, we hated it i think a major part of the SI base was lost at that time, it was missing things like polygon modeling tools. But the best part about XSI was that the development team listened, the next version fixed and added about 2,000 things that the users had requested and/or complained about, in fact every version since its inception has followed this dedication to making a package that works for the users in industry and dosn’t make the users work for the package, the base of users has never been regained even with the creation of ICE in version 7 which is amazing, i mean everyone now can be a TD. Thats pretty cool, if its not in the program Ice gives us the ability to create it therby instantly solving time critical problems.

I ask this simple question knowing that i can’t do anything about it, Many days have passed and im sure that XSI and Autodesk developers argued about each other saying we can or are better than them or we should add that feature, many users have argued about which package is better in forums here and all over the web and it boils down to this, Why is this so sudden? well the answer is most likely a simple one, the economy.

It is affecting everyone, My only hope is that Autodesk isnt just overpowering the competition and leaving the users in their wake, the versions of MAX havent changed significantly in years, if one company controls the major movie and game making packages cant they control the technology, of course they wont run three different packages forever who could afford to do that, and who would want to, Lets add this awsome new technology to MAYA, now everyone buys that package to get that tech, what happens to the other packages? They arent purchased unless you’re a school and get the Autodesk licensing package deal.

Anyway i have used all of the packages professionally and non for over 20 years and i love XSI so maybe im being biased, i just feel kinda sad when i get an email saying the aquisition is final, not that its my right to know, but the base of users that use XSI, know how powerful it is, how easy it is to model, animate, and render in they were loyal and are loyal in hoping that things dont change to much.

I hope that the employees that i’ve come to know and work with in purchasing and support and at all of the fun events stay around, and are not lost in the aquisition at anytime.
Good luck to you.

Good luck to all of us, no competition means no development, no development means stagnation. And stagnation sucks look at the revisions of the competition…ooops did i say competition…sorry.

I feel a little better now after rambling.
Thanks for the opportunity,
Melinda please excuse the bad punctuation and grammer its frustration.

#205

I just bought XSI and now I’m completely sorry I did. I’m glad I still own Lightwave. Autodesk blows, just another greedy corporation with profits as their main source of motivation.

#206

One of the best points made and what really disappoints and worries me equally.

#207

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/blogs_ken/blog_detail/autodesk_acquires_softimage_choose_your_passion/

We can now access this knowledge and IP to determine how we can use it for the 3ds Max agenda. One clear benefit is now having the CAT product in our group. We intend to integrate this exciting animation system into our product line - though we are not currently sharing any details about what that might mean or when it might happen.

3ds max agenda …hmmm

I can say that since we acquired Maya, 3ds Max has gone on to become the most popular professional animation tool on the planet.

It has. hasn’t it ? Recently I tried the 2008 demo and quickly remembered why my ex-place-of-work switched their pipeline to Maya.

Choose your passion - we’re going to do our best to make sure it remains 3ds Max!

again interesting…

#208

I bet when the 3 softs that merged to create maya, people screamed and the walls in the 5th precinct bled, and the sky fell and every thing ended too huh?

#209

I predicted someone would buy XSI out a few months ago but no one believed me… I thought Dassault would go for it looks like Adsk beat them to it.

#210

Autodesk: "This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of SoftImage, it will soon see the end of the Competition. "

Users: “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

I think this is a telling quote from the Area’s own post on the subject. Last sentence: “Choose your passion - we’re going to do our best to make sure it remains 3ds Max!” :argh:

#211

This is terrible news. oh well…

#212

If you can’t innovate by your competition.

I don’t like this any more then any of you, but i need to lie to myself and say this will be a good thing.

Remember, they don’t just have the 3 big 3d app.s now they have their DEVELOPERS.

quick history the way I remember it (someone correct me if I’m off base)

early '90s - the original SoftImage RULED the land of highend 3d.
mid '90s - Alies & wavefront merger (Alies owners of PowerAnimator SoftImages #1 competitor)
late '90s - Alies|wavefront releases Maya 1.0 (shorty after surpassing SoftImage)
late '90s to early 00’s - Softimage lets rumores slip of ‘SUMATRA’
'00 - SoftImage releases XSI

from my memory it took SoftImage 3-4 years to write a bran new, from the ground up, competitor for Maya. Maya is 10 fracken years old! (not something to be proud of in software i would think).

So here is my conspiracy’s theory:
Alies started Writing Maya’s replacment. They Ran out of MONEY, and showed Autodesk what they where working on. Autodesk Seeing this was going to be GREAT, bough Alies OUTRIGHT. Continuing with the Development, Autodesk knows when this launches it needs to be the biggist and best 3d app in the world. Mudbox, motionbuilder, max, Maya, and now XSI, all have GREAT features that make them unique in 1 or 2 ways. So now this Uber app. will have the pedigree of no other 3d app. ever.

ow by the way…any one remeber my first 3d app Infini-D? and what happened to they company who bought them? and THERE super-duper-be-all-end-all app? will history repeat it’s self?

#213

I pop over here to check the threads; and what do I find on the front page: Autodesk buys Softimage - seriously do they really need to own the entire 3d pipeline? :deal:
It 's just wacky.

What’s next Auto-Brush (z-Brush) … I’d be more happy if they bough Izware and re-released Mirai; that’d be cool. But seriously do they really need to own the entire pipeline?!

#214

oh im shocked…not a good news to hear…

#215

Can I ask why so many feel that Autodesk and Adobe are the main competitors for each other. I mean theres some overlap in compositing and video a bit, but thats it, not much over eithers overall picture.

Autodesk is Architecture, 3D, Compositing

Adobe is Image Editing, Web, Illustration, desktop publishing and compositing

Autodesk has nothing like Flex, Air, flash, Dreamweaver, director, illustrator, Indesign, Acrobat

Adobe has nothing like Autocad, Max, Maya, Inventor, Motionbuilder, Mudbox.

While Nemetschek is a fair bit smaller it competes in more areas with autodesk than adobe does.

#216

Sounds like there was a bidding war between Dassault Systemes and Autodesk looks like Adsk won :confused:

Its a shame would have been good if DS had got it…

#217

i think what they meant was- “BUy XSI before Autodesk buy us”

:argh:

huuuge duel slap, with a glove, with a brick in it

#218

Actually I think Autodesk may have saved softimage.

Maybe not forever, but for the time being. 3d has been stagnating in terms of innovation for a while now, IMO. The main reason being lower selling prices and trying to figure out what their customer base was. Is it big studios, is it home studios or is it hobbyists? But each of those groups have specific needs that most companies cannot afford to excel in all at once. On top of that, technology is ever moving forward, requiring more money to hire talent that can help apps stay up with innovation. It is the innovation that made 3d so exciting for so long to so many people, but now that has somewhat faded, as apps are no longer including major new additions or exciting new technologies within their apps. Oddly enough all of this is coming at a time when hardware vendors and OSs are moving more towards an architecture that is more suited for 3d and 2d. The best thing is if the consolidation would finally produce an application suite which seamlessly combines best of breed functionality for 3d, 2d, sculpt, animation, fx and compositing as separate modules that can be combined a la carte to produce the pipeline functionality needed. But I don’t think market forces and the money are there for that to happen. Hopefully it will, but more likely apps will just continue along as they are, trying to maintain their base and innovating just enough to stay fresh without breaking the bank. Not to mention so many users and studios are tied to the functionality within current apps, that scrapping them to make something TOTALLY new and innovative would cause a near riot… :surprised

#219

i couldve swear i had read “flee market” :argh:

#220

" I’d be more happy if they bough Izware and re-released Mirai"
Damn straight, now Id jump ship for that app.