Autodesk Signs Agreement with Avid Technology to Acquire Softimage

#501

Alias was not a public company when Autodesk bought them. They were owned privately by a teachers association from Ontario who sold Alias much higher than they paid for it.

#502

Droping MR could be a dumb move considering the potential advanced technology its now sharing with nvidea. C’mon! MR is a great renderer. As far as aquiring Vray?No! We need competition…

[QUOTE]
Originally Posted by hanskloss "There is no innovation at Autodesk. It’s not the developers or product designers fault. It’s the upper management being high on the “Autodesk empire pill”. It’s like living in bizarro world".

Wow, sounds a lot like microsoft products…

#503

No one said Max was going to be chopped. If you were referring to my post then I was talking about a “what if” scenario.

Btw ever heard of Lehman brothers? or countless big banks that are on their knees from US to Europe? Current economic climate should teach us- “Anything and everything is possible in corporate world.” :curious:

#504

You know ive been coming to this site for at least 7 years
and it seems that you have people who work for CG studios( big and small people) here who want to work for CG studios, and independent freelance artists.(like myself)

so honestly whats the big deal here for your day to day lives
lets assume you have the most recent awesome version of XSI.
and you want NOTHING to do with with autodesk.
what so horrible about staying with your current software for a little while??
it seems to me that only Die hard Fanboys are truly upset about things like this.

I know $$paying$$ clients are not
for example We are at the dawn of AdobeCS4 and Maxon is at Cinema4d R11,Apple is on Final cut studio 5 or something

My last paying gigs were done using Adobe photoshop CS1
Maxon Cinema4D 9.x and Final Cut pro 4
heck im still running autodesk combustion2

and not ONE client asked why I have not upgraded to the latest this or that.
and NO im not some old stick in the mud who believes we should be trying to run Windows 95 and Mac OS9 for the rest of our lives.

But the hyperbolic end of the world hysteria I see in threads like this always Amazes me.

No offense but one can begin to wonder if some people ever actually produce any paid work with your current software or do you just sit and stare at the horizon fretting over what will happen to “My software” Package in the future.

#505

Well, there have been arguments that they moved flash too far from the artists/designer/illustrator/animators hands and into the action scripting hands. I was trying to do a simple presentation in flash a few months ago- and what would have been just a couple of clicks before hand was now a bunch of script. I understand extending the power, but at the cost of function?

XSI on the other hand had the best of both worlds IMHO- elegance in use AND power when you needed and wanted it. I’d hate for it to become MEL soup OR scroll down widget hell.

#506

I heard they decided on XSI’s logo, it’s going to be a manatee. Can anyone confirm this?

#507

Quoted for agreement.

Did we miss something?
Is XSI suddenly different today than it was a month ago?
Did it suddenly break and become completely un-usable?
Are all XSI users suddenly going to lose their artistic abilities?:rolleyes:

It's amazing how there is no end to how juvenile some people are being.
#508

#509

No offence but why don’t you take your own advice and get back to work instead of posting on such a silly thread?

#510

Guys before this thread gets out of hand.

Be more mindfull on how the Softimage users feel.
They do have a RIGHT to be concerned.
After all this is the tool they use day in and day out, and they just want the best for it.

This Merger is no joke, it is one of the biggest game changers in the industry in the past 10 years.

#511

There might be some truth in this. I’m a Maya user for more than 5 years and after the acquisition of Maya I was hoping AD can help with integrating in Maya the photometric lighting available in Max. After my business lost a couple of projects that required light simulation I decided to buy Max just for that rendering feature. I would have been better off to have it all in Maya for the price I paid for Maya and Max but I’m afraid that for marketing purposes Autodesk will not merge features from one app to another but try their best to force businesses to buy several different Autodesk apps. But the problem is that they haven’t done a great job when it comes to compatibility. I still can’t transfer Mental ray materials from Maya to Max.

#512

Just let us know when you guys form a new company and I’ll be first in line to buy that app! Bring Steve and some of the others from support and licensing along too!

For any other 3D company left that might pick up some of these guys and gals- please let us know when they hit your shores.

A few of these aren’t that far away you know…

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=40&Itemid=210

#513

right… why on earth would they develop all 3 programs that essentially do the same thing? Only time will tell which is the one that survives… maybe they are already developing a new app in order to kill redundancy.

This is bad news for the consumer.

#514

i think most people’s concerns are over the business side of this acquisition, not how the software will change. how support, customer services and pricing changes is far more important to me and i would imagine most people/studios than if a certain feature is dropped/changed etc.

#515

There is little chance that Autodesk will fund 3 R&D budgets for 3 different products that essentially do the same thing, that doesnt make any sense. I imagine each app will now be tailored to suit different markets, i dearly hope that none will be binned.

Although many dismiss Blender, for me it is the most significant player in the market simply because of what it represents: Freeware. When you have a commercial product costing thousands and yet another for free then there is only going to be one winner, even though it may take a little time.

Studios will build propriety systems, generalist freelancers will use freeware and tailor it to their own needs. Its a model that all software development will adopt eventually - digital = free , you cant control who uses your code anymore than you can or should control who uses the words you speak - in my humble opinion.

#516

Absolutely true.

However some of the ways people are expressing their “concerns” is a bit childish. A wait and see attitude is probably the most productive thing to do right now. People were acting the exact same way when AD purchased Alias, yet Maya still exists.

But you’re right we do need to be a bit mindful of XSI users concerns.

#517

QFA
And everybody’s bitching about evil Autodesk as if they’re going around steeling every software under the sun. Be reminded that it’s Avid that sold XSI to Adesk.

#518

Maya, Max, XSI will all eventually be devoured and dropped to make way for 1 package to rule them all.

Very sad

#519

Not to mention the Softimage team who was used to a way of working, proud of what they were doing and who don’t know now what will happen to their baby and to themselves

I really don’t think Autodesk is the Devil and it will probably be all fine but it’s a hard world, and in the end, it’s not the heart who prevail, it’s always money so people being worried is very normal

#520

Some peoples re-reactions though are just as childish, and even more so, inflammatory and insensitive.

As far as wait and see…I have to say we’ve been hearing from a lot of Maya people over the years talking about a certain lack of innovation on their end.

While you might be one of the people happy with a view cube or two, but not a lot of significant changes to an application, people using XSI have come to expect innovation and/or serious upgrades in each release. We don’t pay top dollar for logo changes.

Maybe that was childish and insensitive- but “grownups” have to look at the bottom line not the logo. Features and Service Vs. Costs.

Have fun playing with XSI 7.X in three years with a view cube and different year tagged tot he end.

And yes- we could focus all of our anger at Avid- the company that will probably continue to lose NLE market share, and sold its only good organ to save a diseased corps, but that’s already the past- they don’t control the future of XSI or softimage employees- see we’re looking into the FUTURE- and in that little crystal ball we see AD with it’s hands on XSI- and given what those keys to the kingdom have done to other applications AND their staff, we don’t like it.

I say thrust all the frustration and anger energy forward- maybe it will not be lost on deaf ears as there is no point in putting it in the past.