Softimage 2010

#101

Looks at how many redundancies are in the rest of Autodesk’s product lines. I don’t think that they have a problem with this. Yes consolidation may be what you or I would do but Autodesk seems perfectly content to have 5 applications that all do the same thing.

#102

Is the version of MR going to be newer in 2010?

Actually I thought that the new releases and stuff out of Siggraph this year were the most mundane that I can remember. I was really hoping that Nvidia was going to announce CUDA Accelerated Mental Ray for sure. It was a rumor for about the last year that it would be at Siggraph this year and well… It wasn’t. :frowning:

#103

Well, one of the things that made me wonder was the unification of Maya into one package and the inclusion of Face Robot in Softimage, which both could be seen as a small step in the direction of consolidation…

The version of Mental Ray in Softimage 2010 is “rumored” to be 3.7.55, if I recall correctly.

#104

From all the stuff I’ve read over the last few weeks I think AD are happy to have 3 platforms. I think “consolidation” would be to lay people off and reduce the amount of development on the products (perhaps increasing subscription and upgrade costs). NOT making a new package out of existing tech.
More likely is a flexible license which you can “upgrade” to more than one 3d package. So that rather than spend time and money improving seperate applications to do the same thing, instead you get the option to use the parts you wish to use from each application.
But this would mean making a single file standard that allows easy transfer of data between apps. (Perhaps crosswalk 5 or 6)

#105

There is no point atm to consolidate anything.

#1. They’d only be asking their existing 3 island user-base to migrate to a new platform, learn something entirely new, and spend lots of money developing this new unified platform.

#2. They wouldn’t actually attract new customers or sell extra product with this idea, they’d only accomplish not selling their older products and hopefully getting their existing users all on one big continent instead of three islands, but there is no actual profit in that so long as those three islands aren’t going anywhere.

If there comes about a major revolution in technology, one that may even require new software and a whole new way of thinking about Computer Animation and VFX, then you might see a unified platform arise that obsoletes the existing three, but until such a major development takes place I’m guessing things will stay much as they are now with Houdini and Blender striving to take a piece of Autodesk’s 3D pie…

#106

Not really If you have ever used it you would know that it is really just a version of Softimage that has this set of plugins in it. when you open it looks just like Softimage. So I’m sure it took them all of about 5 minutes to pull those into the regular version of Softimage Advanced.

BTW I can’t remember the presentations but did Essentials get the AXE like Maya Complete?

I agree and they would never take that approach anyway. It will just be a new product that has the functionality of all of the existing ones. Once enough of the user base Migrates to it then the Old packages would just get the axe. Say 4-5 years prolly. there is no way they would just come out one year and say this is it this is the new app and you all have to use it casue we are killing everything else off. It will be a gradual thing.

#107

Not really, but XSI was “merged” already almost two years ago.
Advanced and Essentials are exactly the same feature set, just with a difference in XSI Batches licenses (Adv comes with 5 of those, Ess doesn’t), making adv more of a network/farm support license than a different offer like unltdVScomplete.

#108

Definitely there is no point while there is no strong competition around simply easier to sit back and milk look at AutoCad.

But this is also going to screw them in the long run if a competitor enters the market who is outside of their reach for instance Dassualt buys modo or something along those lines…

Whilst they have the overhead of 3 dev teams and applications and having to develop the same tools multiply times across different app’s a competitor can just focus on one product and not have to worry about keep individual value in 3+ separate product so they sell which leads to stupid things…

Problem with Autodesk now is all the can do is loose customers the market is saturated for them, even if they release a new app your not going to get everyone to drop xsi/max/maya and go to it particularly if there is a strong non Adsk competitor out there.

All we can do is hope for another serious player to enter the market.

#109

Dassault (and many others) couldn’t care less about 3D, remember that 3D is still a niche. And even if they bought Modo that app is still lightyears behind Softimage or Maya in many areas i won’t name to avoid a sw fight. Also the development of a 3D app ain’t that easy or automatic as you seem to believe, you can only add a number of features per cycle, otherwise your app will crash at the same frequency a hummingbird beats its wings.

#110

Umm the ceo of Dassault is fanatical about 3D have you noticed all these 3dvia ad’s here lately??? They are making a big move into the “experience” e.g. entertainment side of 3d lately… DS for the record know how to make complex 3D app’s have you seen or used CATIA V5??? It’s many times more complex then any Autodesk application it insanely stable (I’ve never seen it crash unless it runs out of ram)… Mind you its not cheap and you pay for it.

I guarantee you they make more money / profit from 3D application sales then Autodesk do.

But this is not about DS anyway I was just alluding to the fact Autodesk will find themselves in a pickle if another stronger player emerges.

#111

Fact is Maya and XSI are both more or less 10 years old and have a strong place in this industry, even if a new player emerges he’ll have to spend a lot of time just trying to catch up. And i guess AD knows it.

#112

Actually Dassault has been more than interested in DCC for quite a while.
AFAIK they were also trying to get Soft off avid’s hands, but the deal ended up going the way of AD for God knows what agreements.
The main problem isn’t really whether DS or Adobe are interested or not in entering the market, they both are and have been for a while, the problem is entrenchment.

XSI was the only app that had an even remotely decent wedge into the crack, hence the interest in it from those parties even if (I believe) it was pitched to AD quite directly.
Buying Modo or something else for that matter would be a much harder push and require a lot more work than sinking some investment money into an already solid app with marketing backing to go hard after Max market and use it as a pipe to other products, hence there isn’t as much interest in those.
DS and Adobe aren’t after competing with AD for the sake of competition, they would have been into it only if it offered a sales pipe.

3D isn’t that much of a niche these days, and if it is in terms of sales for some apps (including XSI), it’s still worth good money in image and marketing value and as a funnel for other sales and technologies.
Now that AD has the crack nearly sealed though it might be a while before somebody else can take a serious shot at it, Houdini might be the next one standing a chance, but only for some markets.

#113

Sigh… Dassault Softimage has a much better ring to it…

#114

Mods Note: Do NOT post small and with different color again please.

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Keeping it small and grey since I think this, like some other posts, it is off topic for the most part…but on “new” topic…

DCC on the 3D side is still small when compared to the 2D side, but IMHO the potential for continued and sustained growth is really high in comparison. I have no hard facts, but based on my own freelance work, and word from others, more and more different people are asking for a 3D or partially 3D solution to a fairly wide range of clients problems.

Comparing the 2D graphics world history to 3D though seems folly. There is no real 3D scare tactic yet that works like how the “you don’t want to try to go to print with that” type that surrounded adobe products in the late 80’s until even now. There is no “Your render will not be viewable outside of that program or your computer” equvilant AFAIK.

The best one yet, and it’s good for those wanting to work in a studio, is that if you don’t learn Maya you’re toast. I guess the best 2D comparison I can draw is people using quark in newspapers and book publishing sticking to similar guns no mater what…until something that was just so much better…and cheaper in most regards came along- indesign. That said, Maya in all it’s seat holding glorry, never has reached the saturation point that quark did for it’s market.

While Adobe has a little empire I think betting that things will go that way anytime soon for 3D DCC (and I mean the whole spectrum folks, not just people who want to work at mega studio inc) is again folly. There are just too many segments with special needs and too many wonderful programers, program designers, and computer scientists out there for it to get stale anytime soon IMHO.

Besides- I’ve never met a group of people so deeply into their software as those who use 3D DDC creation tools. I just can’t see us standing by and putting up with BS for ever if something better comes around. A non-fantatical about 3D, 3D program user is not a 3D user at all.

#115

Hahahaa while the name sounds better I bet the pricing and licensing wouldn’t although you would get a more stable and featured filled app in the long run…

I heard the reason they didn’t go with it was because it was to expensive, there was a lot of synergy but particularly with 3dvia mp :confused: it saddens me to this day they didn’t buy XSI as they would of had an amazing game pipeline / toolset.

#116

Dream vs. Reality

Softimage is about as good now as it ever would have been under any other company including Avid. Avid went broke with the thing, and had to spruce it up with ICE, like flipping a house, and then sold it off, at a loss. Autodesk is doing a pretty good job overall, and I’m sure doing their best to remain profitable, which means future updates for this beloved application.

3D applications still have a ways to go, that can be said for any single implementation you can think of Max, Maya, Houdini, Soft, Blender, Cinema 4D etc. etc… There is always more to want, always more to tune, always more to ad and always more to fix or integrate better. It’s an endless spiral of wish lists, but at the end of the day, Softimage is quite stable, quite powerful and quite capable. It’s continuing to be developed, and developments in Max and Maya can now be somewhat easily transported to Softimage so it’s really probably the best case scenario that Autodesk bought the software compared to anyone else.

I feel we are in good hands so long as they continue to develop Soft, and integrate solid features from Max and Maya into new releases, update ICE, and keep Soft a leading software, hopefully even getting it into more studios and making the compatibility between the 3 main suites more stable and robust so that Soft artists don’t have to switch to Maya or Max no matter what studio they work for and vice versa. At the end of the day, that is ideally what we should be begging for, and it looks like thats the very direction that Autodesk is taking and I applaud them.

If Autodesk can do anything more on the lisencing end to help studios that employ artists that work across different platforms that would be fantastic, a way to quickly convert a Maya seat into a Softimage seat without a lot of extra hastle or expense to the studio. That sort of switch lisencing power combined with deeper compatibility and integration between the 3 suites is really the most ideal solution for all 3D artists and studios employing Autodesk applications.

#117

I wonder if they’ll ever fix the long hair dynamics, that are just horrid…

I mean, its obvious to anyone thats ever tried to use it, right?

#118

I hope they won’t, because ICE strands kick some serious ass already and offer so many more possibilities.
I hope resources go in that direction and in wrapping it up a bit for the less technically minded. It would also have the benefit of opening it all up for everybody instead of having yet another canned solution tacked on.
Good times ahead for that if they don’t screw it up :slight_smile:

#119

I beg to differ the only reason reason Autodesk bought XSI was so Dassualt won’t get it… I recon they did the maths and figured its heaps cheaper to send 30-40 million on XSI then let a strong competitor get it and loose a tone of seats… XSI was really gaining steam around version 7 and with a strong parent company it would have been in a great spot to do major damage to the Max/Maya install base.

Now they have a red headed step child which has no clear value offering…

Which is quiet sad really :frowning:

#120

So where does it leads to?
Another China maybe.
I am ok with more integrated platforms, but not ok with AD being a moderator of the CG industry.
What about the rest of 3d app? Is not that hey dont offer enough for your buck but that reminds me of WallMart or McDonalds against your local shop.
I hope other competitors will rise soon and make the AD put on their pans and start comig out with advanced technology like Alias did back in the days.
Just an opinion here.
Edgard