When is a software package "Dead and "gone"??

#5

You can still use old software, but you won’t get any support, bug fixes or new features. And when you upgrade your hardware, if it doesn’t work then you can’t use it - eg 64 bit Linux.

Shake was offered with unlimited licenses and source code for the price of 10 licenses which several companies snapped up. I have heard that Double Negative have put a lot of work into getting Shake on 64 bit Linux, but this is only possible because they have the source. It would be nice if more unsupported software had the source code available.

Simon

#6

I know a ton of people still using Shake, I know Lucas Film uses it a lot on the Starwars TV show.

#7

ILM just purchased a Nuke site license…the rest of the company can’t be far behind.

#8

I think some packages will never die for some people because that particular package is all they know and they don’t know how to learn move on. For some, moving on is too hard. So they keep using the old stuff until their computer dies or until it no longer functions in the latest OS. And then they become obsolete like their software.

It can take a long time for a piece of software to become totally dead.

A lot of people still use lightwave and silo. :stuck_out_tongue:
runs away

#9

I have a friend that has an amiga emulator to use their OLD OLD OLD OLD OLD Paint package!! He has actually used it on projects (and I mean current ones)…he just knows how to do some stuff in it that you can’t really do anymore.

I personally have no problem with scrapping the past and moving forward. I learned Shake in 2000 in college using version 1.5 on SGI machines. I started using Nuke about 3 years ago when Shake stopped being supported…I was just sick of how insanely slow and under-optimized it was and wanted something better, I convinced the studio to get it and never looked back (well except when a studio I’m working at only has shake)

#10

I think Shake will be used on features for years more. The studios who bought the source code from Apple are free to update and extend it, build it into their own software in modified forms, etc. and will probably keep using it until they decide there’s something else that’s worth the time and money (mostly the time) to switch.

I’ve seen studios still using Elastic Reality many years after Avid discontinued it. They were using it for roto, not morphing, but if a tool works well and you already own it and know how to use it, the fact that it’s no longer getting developed isn’t by itself enough of a reason not to keep using it on more films.

-jeremy

#11

A lot of people still use lightwave and silo. :stuck_out_tongue:
runs away

seriously ??
it is necessary ?
how about that one …?
amazing lightwave rendering

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=789958

it was still on the front page yesterday

now show us some of the amazing work that you are doing with those 3d software that are still ““alive””

then it would help you to validate your opinion

thank you

#12

Xtrm3d, Bucket was just joking (and I got a laugh out of it) about Lightwave’s (perceived) popularity and Silo’s lack of development. Everyone knows they’re solid programs.

The one that gets me is XSI7, when people go on about how it’s dead now Autodesk own it. That program is going to have legs for a loooong time.

I’ve seen studios still using Elastic Reality many years after Avid discontinued it.

Via XSI, or…?

#13

Its a slow death with autodesk, not like their going to discontinue the program or absorb it into maya. (I’m saying this half jokingly.)

#14

Perhaps, but the point is that even if you never upgrade it, it’ll be good for a lot, for a long time.

#15

ho yeah, companies have been keeping around an SGI box just to run an old copy of Elastic Reality for the morphing.

However, in the last four years many clones of the tools have apeared in all compositors, and the fact that ER doesn't support floating point images (like OpenEXR) makes it now totally obsolete.

I have indeed heard that people have been using it for roto as well, but I can't see why.  It only has bezier curves (bsplines would be a better option), there is no tracker, and the performance is not great.  Except for its nice shape grouping feature, you might as well use an old copy of Commotion if your going to go for old.  Or go for Combustion, whcih does have the bezier/bspline, dopsheet, etc.

p.s.: I 'm the person that put Elastic Reality in Softimage|XSI

#16

Not much point in me showing rigs. A bunch of bones or joints rarely makes me people go wow, no matter what it is demonstrating.

Anyways, sorry I offended thee. I promise to mail your goat back to you as soon as I acquire enough stamps to cover postage. :thumbsup: (another joke, I do not have a real goat in my possession, only the imaginary type and I have plenty of postage stamps)

#17

I’m still using Animation:Master! :slight_smile:

#18

heh, you would be surprised. It will be a while.

#19

The only real problem with using software that isnt supported anymore, is that you’re stuck if you run into a bug or voodoo of some sort. Typicly when you’re deep into the most advanced features and really pushing the envelope of what you can do, then you might discover that this causes the program to crash or do the wrong thing. You cant go shouting at the backoffice support to fix it, and you cant fix it yourself because you dont have the source code… and if you did, its not properly documented. And so on.

#20

The problem may occur when your PC is gone :cry: The new PC will require new OS, because the old one (if it is really old) will be unable to run or to run properly - no drivers, some kind of noncompatibilty. This new OS will not accept old software as you can not run a bunch of software in Vista. So this is the magic formula for kicking users to spend a lot of money for upgrading.
Did you saw masters (mechanics for example or painters) and their tools - they are old, rusty, ragged, skewed, nasty looking but they know them from many years and can make miracles. They know them and all they need is time to use them.
I am still using RealDraw 4, which is about 4 or more years old (recently was an upgrade to v. 5) but I know it from 2001 when it was v. 2.2 so it works. And I am using XP 32 :slight_smile:

#21

Part of the reason everyone’s saying Shake is still in wide use is that a lot of the big studios bought the source code. So a bug could be fixed, or it could be re-compiled with a newer compiler, etc.

The home computer I’m typing this on is XP Professional Version 2002. I wonder if Microsoft will make another operating system after Windows XP? Did they get bought by Apple, just like Nothing Real? :slight_smile:

-jeremy

#22

Multi-year productions don’t upgrade mid-production. They still use older versions of things. One house that I checked out a few weeks ago was still using shake 3.

#23

I’d say the biggest thing would be the bug/ feature side of a program, i mean if you look at programs today, they aren’t out of date, even after a few months/ years, you can still do amazing work with them. But what you can’t do is get support, be it in the form of bug/ software support or development and feature support.

I think for the largest studios who own source code and/ or have custom built apps then it’s not really an issue, but for the smaller studios who can only afford the license, hence only renting the software, then the software becomes obsolete once it can’t do a certain feature which is a must for a project or several.

Just my opinion, could be wrong.

#24

Why programs like shake get abandoned:

They stop supporting modern hardware. No GPU accelleration. Unoptimized for multiple cores. Lack of OS and driver support. No x64 support. Inability to adjust to changing trends with new workflows such as 3D compositing. Attention from third party plugins shifts to other packages leaving no new features.

Also when you’re building a pipeline you want software that will grow and improve. It’s a lot of work to fit a new tool into a pipeline. If the software is going to continue evolving and improving over the years but still be largely compatible with your pipeline integration with a single investment. We have thousands of hours invested in software specific tools. If you are going to need to switch applications in 5 years because it’s so slow and lacking in features then you’ll have to also recode all your inhouse tools. That’s a lot of time and money.

That’s why programs like shake stick around so long in the first place. It’s hard to switch. So people try and divine a software road map which requires as little switching as is humanely possible. Staying with one package for more than a decade means less retraining, less development and less chaos. Buying into a product which has already reached EOL means a guaranteed switch. It might be 3 years before it really starts to feel outdated but 3 years isn’t very long in pipeline time.