Avid plans to divest the Softimage® 3D animation product line.

#53

Here’s an admittedly “tinfoil hat” conspiratorial possibility that they pretty much spelled out in the press release.

Think about it, why would meaningful development on Max and Maya dry up as soon as Autodesk bought them? How would that benefit Autodesk? Are they just stupid, or is there a master plan? Think about what they said in the PR about this exciting new futuristic platform they’re developing. Now, tell me this isn’t a brilliant strategy:

  1. Buy up the top 3d apps, grabbing not only their user bases but also the genius level development teams.

  2. Continue to do the bare minimum required to keep the user bases happy enough that they don’t revolt and go to Houdini or C4D.

  3. Meanwhile, cherry pick the best development brains from the aquired products to create the new Autodesk Uber-App (which is why development on the other apps dries up, the best and brightest have been shanghaied)

  4. When it’s finally ready for prime time, make a big deal out of how it’s not only revolutionary, but migrating from the other apps is SOoooo easy because it was designed by your favorite developers. (and for bonus points if you’re truly schemin’, much of the “development” on the other apps has been to make them all function with a similar interface to make migration even easier)

  5. Slowly kill the other apps (don’t want to incite the townsfolk to revolt! Them sheeps is panicky!) while offering sweet “upgrade” path incentives to the Uber-App.

  6. Own outright the exciting new futuristic uber-app with the combined user base of all the other apps.

  7. Laugh in their solid gold yacht buried in prostitutes into the sunset of retirement after they sell it to Microsoft for a trillion dollars.

I started thinking about this as a sick joke, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes… Am I just crazy?

#54

Stop the whining. If you are an artist, you don’t care who makes your brushes, as long as they work the way you want them to.

Both Softimage employees and Autodesk are committed to keeping the products separate but easy to collaborate between.

It’s a good thing, as the fundings for XSI development will be considerably higher.

As they say, they respect the individuals choice of tools, but want them to be more easy to mix.

http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3805&page=1

#55

I see…Fongool. It would be really bad to have a uber-app better than XSI,Maya and Max… :rolleyes:

Post edit

This part of Paul Doyle last post tells much of the future, about something i have claimed that 3D apps are behind the curve.

Something to consider is what we believe the market will become like over the next few years. I know more than a few film companies that are producing their CG features in ‘game’ engines. Everyone expects real-time quality to continue improve to a point where it can be used in any market. Arch-vis in particular is placing more and more attention on real-time tech and game engines. As for games itself, we’re in the middle of the current-gen game cycle, but soon the next-gen needs and requirements will start to become clearer. I don’t think that any of the current DCC apps are close to what is required for the next generation of game dev - talking to the various ‘big’ games companies in recent months about the future raised many questions, and few answers beyond ‘we’re looking at it’. For me, focussing on real-time technology is relevant to all the 3D markets - and I believe there’s going to be more than a few new players coming in. What product/s are there at the time, who knows - but if Max/Maya/XSI aren’t there then it’s because they can’t address the needs of the evolving markets, not because ‘three’s too many, we have to drop one’. Businesses like making money - selling products that make money makes sense.

http://softimageinsider.blogspot.com/

#56

Fresh off XSIbase forums :slight_smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7UWImpG54

Enjoy tehehee :slight_smile:

#57

…i wish apple or even adobe bought it …

Please tell me you’re joking.

#58

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

LOL!!! :applause::applause::applause: !!!

You just made my day…!!! Absolutely hilarious…

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

#59

Laughing my glasses off! Man, that’s so brilliant!

#60

after much deliberation and context of thought … i was …
actualy no … I think i drank myself to that statement in depression of the divestment …
i am sober now

esp after that you tube video

#61

I have a quick question about this whole thing.

As a European customer we all have to buy Autodesk products via Authorised resellers. At the moment I’m still able to buy XSI online without reseller and without the crazy European price conversion.

Do you think it’s better to buy XSI right now rather than in 3 months?

#62

I see many people saying this, but isn’t that like cutting off your nose to spite your own face?

Blender is no replacement for XSI

#63

I couldn’t resist.

Im tired from working 18 hours today - this just woke me up and made my day.

Dude — thank you for sharing!

:applause:

#64

^^ Sad times for XSI for sure but I have to say that tube clip had me laughing out loud!

Well for me this is the second time around - first was with my beloved Dreamweaver and Fireworks, now XSI (well there was also that fiasco with Eovia and Hexagon 2 - so that’s actually three…)

My thing is, that so called new management team should have looked at where XSI was going especially with the release of ICE and all the positive energy from the community instead of just looking at spreadsheets and financial data.

I feel somewhat stabbed in the back - especially considering the emails I received during my upgrade process to v7 “…you won’t regret the upgrade along with maintenance - especially with all the great stuff coming down the line…”

I’m paraphrasing but obviously the sales reps didn’t know this was coming either. (I’d hope.)
I guess my little “$1800 to show my support to Softimage” will be going to AD now.

My thing is - instead of having faith in the division, they sold out cheap - pretty much everyone that heard about this was surprised how cheap AD got all this for.

Sure there’s potential for XSI to now have more funding and resources but I thought business was also about not being afraid of the numbers? To risk it all - sweating and fighting your way up from being the underdog to being number one and the best , the glory of victory - what happened to that business spirit?

When I think of all the buzz and hoopla Softimage had going around siggraph time - damn, they even had Vanilla Ice at the party :shrug: to then turn around and do this to everyone - I just have to shake my head.

I say keep Softimage as a division of Avid and SAVE a large chunk of money by toss’n out dem dudes they hired that came up with this lousy idea that shows NO loyality to the customers, development team OR to the Softimage brand name.

-Will

#65

You’re kind of on the right track. The Autodesk - Adobe analogy draws a bit of a fuzzy line, but the battery of specialty apps you get with Creative Suite does in a lot of ways reflect the specialty 3D apps that’ve been popping up–like Mudbox and Motion Builder. That argument falls apart when you look at the main three apps that Autodesk now owns, where they each share functionality but with wildly different interfaces. It’s easy to see it as a monopolistic acquisition of the properties for the sake of culling the field as classically monopolies tend to get rid of things that “compete” with what they see as the main product line.

I don’t see Autodesk’s acquisition as being monopolistic, though. In today’s economy smaller companies with a lot of potential can be destroyed very easily, and even a company like Avid can hit the kind of financial stress that could bring it down–and Avid is definitely not the most wild success ever as a company. To give you an idea, we use their non-linear editing software at my school, but virtually all the students here avoid it in favor of FinalCut Pro unless an instructor absolutely REQUIRES them to use it; plus we have exactly two liscenses and no more since there may be exactly one instructor using it. At any rate it’s only natural in this economy to see consolidation–large companies buying properties they deem of value and interest, both adding an asset to their portfolio cheaply and providing resources and economic shelter in bad times. That, at the very least, is the argument Autodesk will use, if not one that has some truth.

To the question of whether or not XSI’s features will blend with the other two apps, I don’t think so. Programming just doesn’t work that way. Look at it this way: since they bought Max, how much of it and its feature set has truly blended in with Maya? I can see them lifting some algorithms where XSI does things more precisely than the other programs for the sake of improving those programs’ performance in things like UV transfer, but at the deepest level these three programs were still born of what amounts to some wildly different code bases. Bigger features are hardcoded in or close to the foundations of the program, which means re-doing most of Maya or Max for the sake of making them do what XSI already does or re-doing most of XSI to try and make it work more like the other programs.

Finally, I will re-iterate, they all have their particular (broad) specialties. Who can say that since Autodesk acquired Max that its architectural tools are present in Maya, for instance? Or its system of filters? Who can say that Max’s basic UI has changed even the slightest bit to resemble Maya more? I’ve been using Max since it was still owned by Discreet and it’s remained largely the same. There’s little reason to believe that any of these programs will change on an earth-shattering level now that XSI is in Autodesk’s hands–especially since there’s no word yet that they intend to dismantle Softimage as a company. I predict that the absolute worst thing we’ll be able to say is that instead of “Softimage XSI” we’ll be calling it “Autodesk XSI” or “Autodesk Softimage XSI.”

#66

That’s probably how Cg artists and companies will have to look at it ourselves, or just take our lumps and move on.

We’re more multi app every day anyways, so it’s a hard , necessary move to be multidexterous …use whatever is cost effective or on hand… I suppose. :rolleyes:

#67

Not much, but using another example - quite a bit of MotionBuilder has been integrated into Maya. So they do look for some integration where they think it’ll help the most. Integration between XSI, Max and Maya should be stronger going forward, or so I hope.

I’d love to see something like what Adobe has done where you can import project files from one program into another program. I’d like to buy the “Autodesk Master Collection” and be able to model something in Max, save it off as a native file and open it in Maya natively to do some animation then open it in XSI to do some work in ICE all working in a single format. Sort of like an uber-FBX. No more .max files or .xsi or .ma/.mb files. But, as Michael says, programming doesn’t work like that and that’ll never happen. But one can dream… :slight_smile:

#68

People talk of 3dsmax like it was acquired by Autodesk at some point. They have always owned it, just like 3dstudio Dos before it.

#69

Not by a long shot!!

#70

it did … from Discreet … i used to us it a looooong time ago too … my first 3d software … it took my 3d virginity 0_o

#71

I would call that rebranding. Yost group made 3dsmax version 1 for Autodesk back in the day. Every other company since has been owned by Autodesk (kinetix, discreet). I see that they “bought” it from discreet (a company they own), but what does that mean?

#72

ohhh .thanks … I did not know it was a subsid of AD … :slight_smile:
but i knew the original was purchased somewhere along that line … thanks man

:slight_smile: