Re: Listening
Exactly! Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Sadness about the state of the list...
I just want to go on the record and say that I've found it really disappointing reading the list over the last week. It seems that there is quite a number people who are very new to it that have just come here to vent in a totally inappropriate manner that goes against all that this list has been about over the years. The great signal-to-noise ratio that everyone lauds has completely tipped off the scale into the negative IMO. I know this is huge news, I know that it feels like a massive kick in the balls and i agree that it's a huge injustice to the software and the people that use and depend on it; but It's telling that so many of the names that made this community (and arguably the software itself) what it is are completely silent or absent from discussions about this. It's obvious that people are upset (myself as well, more than you can imagine) but I feel like I'm reading a forum overrun with spambots... That's my personal reason for being so silent. The saddest thing would be if we can't keep our community coherent. DAN
Re: SI and Houdini
No, there isn't an interface for motion clips editing although there are motion clips a a concept. (Bclip) but like you can guess you can construct the operations in chops if you want but it's painful, although really powerful. :-/ My intention is to talk to side effects to incorporate animation layers and a mixer. Let's see Hope it helps Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 02:16, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote: Is there an animation mixer in Houdini?
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Will be evaluating modo too. Have a duel pipeline for as long as soft works I think. Wonder if this webinar with brad will happen soon? Be good to hear some input. On Mar 8, 2014 11:20 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Agree that that should be part of the final requests... apart from the new Softimaya part. At least existing clients can. On 03/08/14 18:13, Jordi Bares wrote: The problem is buying licenses.. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Mar 2014, at 20:55, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well there is always the option to hire some Softimage freelancers to add more seats to your studio in case you need them. Fortunatley we are at a stage now, that archives can be easily move from any part of the world. You can easily integrate this kind of workflow and additional Softimage seats to your pipeline, without actually having to buy more licenses. Just a thought. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-08 14:50 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: At realise we were about to embark on a project and were contemplating the idea of getting a couple of Softimage licenses, in parallel we are testing Modo too to complement the modelling side but now seems the Softimage route is closed so we will either wait to see what Side Effects do as a result of the Softimage fiasco or buy modo and invest on it. seems likely we will go Modo Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Mar 2014, at 20:22, David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com wrote: Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635
RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/https://vimeo.com/user4174293http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd.If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone.Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 + Hi Sebastian, I’ll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes – and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues – that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division – which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk’s annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say “focus” what we mean is better balancing our finite resources so that we can still invest in new research projects – even if these might fail – while continuing to evolve and improve existing customer workflows. To enable us to continue the former we had to focus on Maya and 3ds Max for the latter. Regards maurice Maurice PatelAutodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 9:55 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice ? is softimage being discontinued because of cost issues ?or because it is impeding other AD products ?it may seem redundant, but this question has not been answered.
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Maurice, Thanks for taking the time to write this. We are all aware that there are things you are allowed to tell us and much that you are not and you cannot be blamed for that. I have always had the highest respect for you, but with all due respects, the explanation you have provided is far from satisfactory. Even if it is true that the decision to kill Softimage was only made last year, it does not explain why Softimage's presence on the AD web site has been practically non existent from the day AD acquired Softimage. The intention was made clear from the beginning. Having said that, Softimage has lasted longer than I anticipated. Regards On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.comwrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say focus what we mean is better balancing our finite resources so that we can still invest in new research projects - even if these might fail - while continuing to evolve and improve existing customer workflows. To enable us to continue the former we had to focus on Maya and 3ds Max for the latter. Regards maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 9:55 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice ? is softimage being discontinued because of cost issues ? or because it is impeding other AD products ? it may seem redundant, but this question has not been answered. -- Andre De Angelis
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Maurice I understand what you have just said. But really how much attention was Softimage taking off from your resources to move on other projects? Why kill it when it was gaining momentum? Why not keep the small dev team in Asia or maybe reduce it for just delivering SP to fix bugs and open the SDK until you really have a better solution? You already saw, and I include myself how was the reaction for this abrupt decision. We already stated that some will stay with Softimage, some will find another solution out of Autodesk even if they have to deal with 2 or 3 apps, and the less will migrate to Maya or already were using Softimage and Maya. You can still charge the subscriptions maybe at a lower rate as there will be no further development, and people will continue to use your software being happy unitl we feel that there is trully a better option for what we do and the way we do it. My first 3d software was 3d studio and I loved it. Suddenly I watched a Softimage 3D presentation and I fell in love with it. So I switched from 3D Studio to Softimage because I was convinced that Softimage was a better solution. If I believed that Maya was a better solution for the work I do, I would have switched from Softimage to Maya already. So I will say. Keep the small dev team of Softimage fixing bugs and deliver SP, open the SDK and I am sure that when you finally achieved your goals of making something better. Most people will change to the new option because they are convinced. Not because you want to drag us in Maya or MAX while you come out with something better. My 2 cents. Cheers. --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 2:38 GMT-06:00 Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.com: Hi Andi, As many people pointed out I don't think anything else can be a complete replacement for ICE. Bifrost is not a port of ICE to Maya and that was not the goal nor did I mean to imply that it was. It is just an area of innovation for us in the sense that we are creating something from scratch. A lot of its design of course was influenced heavily by Naiad and by ICE. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:30 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 + Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier.
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
Good point Dan – with all the current noise there’s not much you can add that will be heard. That’s the Anger part - it seems the list has mostly shifted to Bargaining now. The noise is fine for now – it has grabbed some attention which thoughtful words couldn’t . Hopefully next week things calm down some – and then there could be some more serious talk. From: Dan Yargici Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 9:12 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Sadness about the state of the list... I just want to go on the record and say that I've found it really disappointing reading the list over the last week. It seems that there is quite a number people who are very new to it that have just come here to vent in a totally inappropriate manner that goes against all that this list has been about over the years. The great signal-to-noise ratio that everyone lauds has completely tipped off the scale into the negative IMO. I know this is huge news, I know that it feels like a massive kick in the balls and i agree that it's a huge injustice to the software and the people that use and depend on it; but It's telling that so many of the names that made this community (and arguably the software itself) what it is are completely silent or absent from discussions about this. It's obvious that people are upset (myself as well, more than you can imagine) but I feel like I'm reading a forum overrun with spambots... That's my personal reason for being so silent. The saddest thing would be if we can't keep our community coherent. DAN
RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
There are many reasons for that. Only the top revenue generating products ever get slots on the front page of the website. Most of Autodesk's hundreds of products are not featured that way either and most of them generate more revenue than Softimage. I think many hoped that we would promote Softimage as an alternative to Maya or 3ds Max but that was never our goal. For the past few years we were heavily focused on promoting Suites in our campaigns although we have made the decision to focus more on the Maya and 3ds Max brands this year. Ultimately Marketing programs generally focus on where they believe they can get its best return-on-investment and that has been in selling upgrades and Suites. The bulk of our customers being on Maya and 3ds Max, our campaigns have tended to focus there. At the time of the acquisition a statement was made about the fact that one of the key drivers was to acquire a talented RD team as much as it was the software. The exact quote being: Softimage has been developing state-of-the-art 3D technology for more than 20 years, and its products are recognized as best-of-breed in the entertainment industry, said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media Entertainment. Upon the completion of this acquisition we will be adding Softimage technology and products to our portfolio, and welcoming one of the most talented teams in the industry to Autodesk Media Entertainment. Both will help us accelerate the work of our Games Technology Group, as we build the next-generation of real-time, interactive 3D authoring tools for games, film and television. Although I cannot speak exactly as to what Marc's intentions were there was hope that we would be building new next-gen technologies as much as we would be maintaining existing ones. But like I said the plans evolved and changed because they always do. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andre De Angelis Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:50 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice, Thanks for taking the time to write this. We are all aware that there are things you are allowed to tell us and much that you are not and you cannot be blamed for that. I have always had the highest respect for you, but with all due respects, the explanation you have provided is far from satisfactory. Even if it is true that the decision to kill Softimage was only made last year, it does not explain why Softimage's presence on the AD web site has been practically non existent from the day AD acquired Softimage. The intention was made clear from the beginning. Having said that, Softimage has lasted longer than I anticipated. Regards On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.commailto:maurice.pa...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Hi Maurice, That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up! Greetz LeendertMaurice Patel schreef op 9-3-2014 1:30: Hi Leendert The mechanism is the same. Your comment about three versions back applies to what is made available as new releases are issued. No new releases for Softimage will be available so the situation is not really identical and the three version back limitation does not apply. Also the three limit back is about access to licenses not about existing ones. For example if you are using Maya 2009 today (more than 3 versions back) you can still continue to use it although you would only access 2011, 2012, 2013 from the Subs center. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 -- Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Hey Maurice, just to make it clear. AD does not offer a complete replecement for ICE for now and in the near future. Doyou think it was a smart move to kill off a software that had a unique selling point like ICE if you are not able to offer a similar technology...? Not to mention all the workflow issues, UIlogic, reliability and stuff like that..oh..I forgot, you are working on it right now..and yes, you will focus on that in the future...sure...You don´t need to answer...its a rhetorical question one... cheers, oli Am 09.03.2014 09:38, schrieb Maurice Patel: Hi Andi, As many people pointed out I don't think anything else can be a complete replacement for ICE. Bifrost is not a port of ICE to Maya and that was not the goal nor did I mean to imply that it was. It is just an area of innovation for us in the sense that we are creating something from scratch. A lot of its design of course was influenced heavily by Naiad and by ICE. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:30 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 + Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say focus
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
We'll jump on the Modo train (at least partly as long as Softimage still runs on current hardware). I think it has great potential and at that pricetag it's really a no-brainer to add to ones arsenal. ;) I've been watching / evaluating it for some time now and so far I have only been pleasantly surprised. Even the deformation / animation / rigging part looks and feels quite mature for the short time it exists. 2014-03-08 21:22 GMT+01:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com: Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Would like to take a closer look at it myself. okt...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Steffen Dünner steffen.duen...@gmail.comwrote: We'll jump on the Modo train (at least partly as long as Softimage still runs on current hardware). I think it has great potential and at that pricetag it's really a no-brainer to add to ones arsenal. ;) I've been watching / evaluating it for some time now and so far I have only been pleasantly surprised. Even the deformation / animation / rigging part looks and feels quite mature for the short time it exists. 2014-03-08 21:22 GMT+01:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com: Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93 -- Octavian Ureche +40 732 774 313 (GMT+2) Animation Visual Effects www.okto.ro
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Hi Maurice, It seems to me nobody wants to do maintenance on what's worth while at AD, innovation is where the short term success is, so that's where the focus should be. I know this is a rhetorical question, but what do you think the lifespan of the fruits the innovations at AD will be with a business model like that ? -Ronald On 3/9/2014 5:51, Maurice Patel wrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say focus what we mean is better balancing our finite resources so that we can still invest in new research projects - even if these might fail - while continuing to evolve and improve existing customer workflows. To enable us to continue the former we had to focus on Maya and 3ds Max for the latter. Regards maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 9:55 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice ? is softimage being discontinued because of cost issues ? or because it is impeding other AD products ? it may seem redundant, but this question has not been answered. -- Ronald van Vemden --- 3D Graphics Animation Cyberfish Laboratories | www.cyberfish.nl Toonafish | www.toonafish.nl tel. +31(0)20 5289291 fax +31(0)20 5289292 email: ron...@toonafish.nl
Re: SI and Houdini
There is the dopesheet but i don't know if that reflect the motion clips. But once save its easy too see and b blend then in chops Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Not really thinking about transitioning yet, but it doesn't hurt have it in the tools. tridi.animei...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Octavian Ureche okt...@gmail.com wrote: Would like to take a closer look at it myself. okt...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Steffen Dünner steffen.duen...@gmail.com wrote: We'll jump on the Modo train (at least partly as long as Softimage still runs on current hardware). I think it has great potential and at that pricetag it's really a no-brainer to add to ones arsenal. ;) I've been watching / evaluating it for some time now and so far I have only been pleasantly surprised. Even the deformation / animation / rigging part looks and feels quite mature for the short time it exists. 2014-03-08 21:22 GMT+01:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com: Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93 -- Octavian Ureche +40 732 774 313 (GMT+2) Animation Visual Effects www.okto.ro
Re: Area lights shadows look like steps
Hello Jason, Thanks for the help. The steeping is well visible in my render pass' camera, not only in the threshold but on large parts of the roundness of objects. So as I use this shadow pass as an alpha in composting, it's annoying. But your post made me think of other options to tweak: - In Geometry approximation Poly mesh I increased the subdiv level from 2 to 3 and got smaller steps. - In Geometry approximation Poly mesh I increased the discontinuity angle from 60 to 120 and got more softness. - In the light settings soft light raytraced soft shadows I set it to 3 and 15 and got a bit more softness, but it seriously increased rendering time. What bugs me is that the steps are still here. Smaller and softer but still here. By the way, I didn't find the option to turn off cast shadows on visible faces, could you help me on that? Thanks, David On 2014-03-08 20:38, Jason S wrote: That stepping always occurs, (revealing object polygons without smoothing) happenning at the lit/shaded threshold of objects. But normally isn't visible, as it happens slightly beyond the maximum reach of the light on an object (will show-up in shadow only passes) And should similarly (normally) become invisible once you comp your shadows in, on a pass with that light only. Of course if you comp that on on the final with other light sources you'll see the stepping, in that is the case, you can turn off cast shadows on visible faces and voila!
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Keep up the noise... (but don't be a dick)
We actually don't care if you use Maya from v1. We care we can't use Softimage anymore and that's it. Nothing fancy, nothing philosophical, we just wanna keep using it. On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 11:43 PM, Graham Bell graham.b...@autodesk.comwrote: Just to add to this. By all means, reach out to Chris, as Greg mentions. But if there are any if you in UK/EMEA, then please feel free to contact me off list if you have any questions, queries etc, even about Maya. And before anyone comes up with some theory that I'm being forced onto Maya, blah, blah, I should point out that ( as well as Soft), I've also been using Maya since v1.0 Graham From: g...@janimation.commailto:g...@janimation.com g...@janimation.commailto:g...@janimation.com Reply-To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2014 12:20:00 -0600 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Keep up the noise... (but don't be a dick) Keep up the noise people!! Change has already happened keep up the pressure folks. Write to your congressman..Ermm, I mean this guy... chris.vienn...@autodesk.comailto:chris.vienn...@autodesk.com Please PLEASE... don't name call... but for god's sake let him know why this is a BIG MISTAKE for his company and yours! It's worse for them than it is for us, for them to kill soft..it simply makes no short or long term sense. They are doing nothing but alienating users, not just on the Softimage side---as I have not met a single Maya or Max user that actually likes the company called Autodesk. Let him know that there is a market for Soft..and the ONLY reason they are not making a killing on it is that they won't invest and market it...that's it...otherwise it would have been gaining and growing the user-base like mad. It also gives AD a safety net... Maya is busting at the seams... they are now having to make programs that run outside of Maya to do a tenth of what ICE does...Biofrost... Bio-hazard is more like it from the word on the street. If it falls apart, and AD falls on its face, as it has many times with attempted rewrite (Toxic any one?..remember that was supposed to turn into the 3d app too..lol, how quickly people forget ADs blunders. How many millions were wasted on that dev...vs what it costs to buy and maintain soft???). Soft is the only recently rewritten core...major overhaul was done for ice.. major) What Autodesk needs is a Walt Disney, a John Lassiter or dare I say a Willy Wonka? It needs a visionary leader that has been in the trenches of all aspects of 3d and compositing. Who understands the needs of the big and small shops alike... One who knows the future is not in a code base which is more than 24 years old. One that understands that if the customer is happy, the stock holders will be happy. The person should not be driven by board meetings, but rather exciting the entire 3d user base instead of alienating them. One who understands that what makes a great development team is great and transparent interaction with its beta testers.. One who is not afraid to let one product outshine the rest on its own merits...(like the Whiskey Tree elysium demo that was axed at siggraph last year since it outshone the Disney technology AD licensed.) One that understands there should be a production team at AD using their products to produce short films, so they have a freaking clue what the real world needs...this is how both softimage and alias used to do it...before they were bought by companies that simply don't understand how creativity works... One that the user aspires to be like..because that person makes the cool stuff AD you are making creative software...AD needs to foster a creative culture...period. IF AD thinks you have, I can assure you that you have not... your results speak for themselves. Don't kill Soft, prop it up and keep it viable...and MARKET IT! It can already do so much your other two 3d apps can't... Do the same with the rest... keep them alive..until AD delivers a new modern app that we will all be happy to move to. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: SI and Houdini
I am afraid there are three weak points in Houdini, modelling is pretty bad, the animation toolset is pretty old and the shading requires some work to make it artist friendly In my opinion none if them is a deal breaker but the artists coming will certainly cringe at some issues, the good news is that they are looking into these things and that means it will be shortly fixed. Once you see how responsive Side Effects Dev team is you will wonder where were the dollars going at Autodesk. Jb Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 10:41, demianpe...@yahoo.com demianpe...@yahoo.com wrote: There is the dopesheet but i don't know if that reflect the motion clips. But once save its easy too see and b blend then in chops Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android From: Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com; To: davidsa...@sfr.fr davidsa...@sfr.fr; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com; Cc: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com; Subject: Re: SI and Houdini Sent: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 8:16:07 AM No, there isn't an interface for motion clips editing although there are motion clips a a concept. (Bclip) but like you can guess you can construct the operations in chops if you want but it's painful, although really powerful. :-/ My intention is to talk to side effects to incorporate animation layers and a mixer. Let's see Hope it helps Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 02:16, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote: Is there an animation mixer in Houdini?
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
From start it was clear that AD will never promote Softimage, not as replacement to 3ds max and Maya but not even as option. From AD side isn't it same if you customer using Softimage or Max or Maya, when all incomes are going back to AD anyway? So story about promoting one over another is crap. And after 4 years Softimage started to gain momentum despite being buried in AD marketing.. again it is not even mater of front page but complete AD reseller network towards Softimage, plugins are getting better and honestly surpassing anything that AD development did providing new tech that is used in production and not used for fancy bullet point new features list for marketing. Big shops are putting Sofitmage into focus as well, no need to go over all great work done recently as well. And then AD kills it. So really it doesn't make any sense at all to kill product that started to gain momentum even without proper marketing.. imagine if it was pushed like just a fragment of % that is used for Max and Maya, unless it was plan for day one and date for EOL set in documents long ago. So really I don;t think that there is ANYONE at all that believe we just decided to do that story and it is for better of customers and industry Yea truly progress for Softimage users going from far superior workflow to inferior one.. thanks... On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Toonafish ron...@toonafish.nl wrote: Hi Maurice, It seems to me nobody wants to do maintenance on what's worth while at AD, innovation is where the short term success is, so that's where the focus should be. I know this is a rhetorical question, but what do you think the lifespan of the fruits the innovations at AD will be with a business model like that ? -Ronald On 3/9/2014 5:51, Maurice Patel wrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies and innovations we were experimenting with would prove more fruitful than they did (e.g. projects like skyline). Does that mean we should not have attempted them? Personally, I think we need to try and do new things even if we know that 99% of attempts at innovation will end in failure - after all they sometimes end in success (e.g. Bifrost). Ultimately when we say focus what we mean is better balancing our finite resources so that we can still invest in new research projects - even if these might fail - while continuing to evolve and improve existing customer workflows. To enable us to continue the former we had to focus on Maya and 3ds Max for the latter. Regards maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 9:55 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Maurice ? is softimage being discontinued because of cost issues ?
Re: Listening
You shouldn't sleep ever again after this fiasco. Great words Emilio. I'm sharing the most I can. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 5:09 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Exactly! Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Softimage has been developing state-of-the-art 3D technology for more than 20 years, and its products are recognized as best-of-breed in the entertainment industry, said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media Entertainment. Upon the completion of this acquisition we will be adding Softimage technology and products to our portfolio, and welcoming one of the most talented teams in the industry to Autodesk Media Entertainment. Both will help us accelerate the work of our Games Technology Group, as we build the next-generation of real-time, interactive 3D authoring tools for games, film and television. And what do you do? You let this highly talented team to continue to develop innovation and state-of-the-art 3D technology by allowing them to continue working in Softimage? No ... you just shift everybody to work on another project that up until now hasn't delivered on single line of innovation. If that is not stupid, I don't know what it is. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 8:50 AM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comwrote: From start it was clear that AD will never promote Softimage, not as replacement to 3ds max and Maya but not even as option. From AD side isn't it same if you customer using Softimage or Max or Maya, when all incomes are going back to AD anyway? So story about promoting one over another is crap. And after 4 years Softimage started to gain momentum despite being buried in AD marketing.. again it is not even mater of front page but complete AD reseller network towards Softimage, plugins are getting better and honestly surpassing anything that AD development did providing new tech that is used in production and not used for fancy bullet point new features list for marketing. Big shops are putting Sofitmage into focus as well, no need to go over all great work done recently as well. And then AD kills it. So really it doesn't make any sense at all to kill product that started to gain momentum even without proper marketing.. imagine if it was pushed like just a fragment of % that is used for Max and Maya, unless it was plan for day one and date for EOL set in documents long ago. So really I don;t think that there is ANYONE at all that believe we just decided to do that story and it is for better of customers and industry Yea truly progress for Softimage users going from far superior workflow to inferior one.. thanks... On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Toonafish ron...@toonafish.nl wrote: Hi Maurice, It seems to me nobody wants to do maintenance on what's worth while at AD, innovation is where the short term success is, so that's where the focus should be. I know this is a rhetorical question, but what do you think the lifespan of the fruits the innovations at AD will be with a business model like that ? -Ronald On 3/9/2014 5:51, Maurice Patel wrote: Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk's annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We were optimistic that some of the RD methodologies
Re: SI and Houdini
It’s been a rough time ever since the acquisition of Softimage by AD. And the community has been held hostage with maintenance ever since (similar to the situation Softimage|3D to XSI I might add). Our company has dropped maintenance for four licenses two years ago and last year for the remaining six. It came basically came down to one thing: We decided what kind of customer we didn’t want to be. As customers of Arnold, Exocortex and Nuke we’ve had unmatched customer service from their vendors and we couldn’t cope with the situation we were in with AD any longer. From what I gather SideFX is yet another company with such a great reputation to customer service. And judging from their on forum and odforce there’s an awesome community out their. If you treat them with respect to their culture (aka don’t be a d*ck about what has worked better in your past) you’ll be helped at once. As Jordi already mentioned here and in the SideFX forums, there is a lot to like in Houdini. Just don’t expect it to be Softimage, just as you wouldn’t expect a layer based compositor to work like a node based one. Andy On Mar 09, 2014, at 12:49, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: Once you see how responsive Side Effects Dev team is you will wonder where were the dollars going at Autodesk.
Re: SI and Houdini
Last time I heard, they still use Maya for rigging and animation and use point cache to transfer data to houdini. On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:57 AM, Martin Contel martin3d...@gmail.com wrote: Axis Animation is one of the largest Houdini houses, and they run everything on Windows. -- Martin Contel Square Enix (Visual Works)
Re: SI and Houdini
I think the point was that it generally runs well on windows these days, something that hasn't always been the case for some builds in the past. On 9 Mar 2014 23:12, Nuno Conceicao nunoalexconcei...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I heard, they still use Maya for rigging and animation and use point cache to transfer data to houdini. On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:57 AM, Martin Contel martin3d...@gmail.comwrote: Axis Animation is one of the largest Houdini houses, and they run everything on Windows. -- Martin Contel Square Enix (Visual Works)
Re[2]: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Maurice, if you would kindly offer 2 minutes of your precious time, I'd like to react to your statement, too: Of course it makes perfect sense to invest in research for future technology and innovations - we should expect that from a big company like yours. Softimage wouldn't exist without it. But you just killed the application in your portfolio that was best suited for small studios/freelancers (or anybody who wants to keep his sanity wielding complex 3d for that matter) - the reasons why Softimage is just this have now been elaborated by many (see also the online petition's comments). Put very briefly, it's a) a very ergonomic software, and b) more is possible for less people. Now it is still unclear after reading your post why maintaining Softimage was conflicting your rd endeavours in any way. Although my own job experience with Maya is little (used 3ds max, got more and more disappointed, didn't like Maya, switched to XSI shortly before the acquisition), but from what I came to know, and what I continuously hear from those who use both XSI and Maya - it is NOT and 'artist-friendly' tool - far from it, despite some progress. That's redundant information, I know, and I'm aware of course that you are already working on it. It's just that I don't have the feeling up until now that you are really, with FULL dedication and enthusiasm, are trying to make Maya a more ergonomic, logic, and modern software. Just picture what an ideal 3d application would look like these days, after all we have seen and learned - being able to work on (more and more) complex scenes with confidence and consistency, with an open and modular approach, and maybe even with some ease and joy. Maya is far from that ideal. Very far. It gives me this feeling like working on a fragile glass scuplture with all the wrong tools. If I (for my tiny part) are to be convinced that Maya is a good choice for a freelancer, I would need to see a really dedicated initiative from your side that you are willing to try to bring Maya MUCH closer to that ideal. Step up and show to us that you understand it's many issues (even feel a little ashamed, considering of how many manyears of crapfixing you burdened on your users) now that you hold all the XSI knowledge, and how you are going to fix them. Workflow, consistency, user interface. Reduce the clutter. Remove redundancies. Simplify the UI to be much less distracting and intimidating. A good UI is the art of simplifying complexity, so our limited brains can still take it in. Introduce all the good stuff you now inherited from the death of aunt Softimage. There is so much more pending work than for you adding even more features, clever and important as they may be (Bifröst). I don't know where the limits of the Maya architecture are. Codebase is 20 years old, give or take. After all, it's advantage (and reason for survival) was it's openness. Maybe you even don't yourself, and I suspect that you will have to dig really deep - so deep you might scratch the very bottom frequently. Obviously you are confident that all the problems can be solved, and this is the better investment than taking Softimage and giving it the (much needed) 'core' updates. (otherwise, I would suspect you of willingly force your users into bad compromises because of questionable business strategies. You don't want that stigma.) So, what's the plan with Maya? Ah, right, you cannot tell - you're a stock corporation. I also believe that the Softimage EOL might have come too early. You are putting yourself under pressure that way, because as you hear, practically everybody having to use Maya now takes it as a downgrade, and where's the promised land? But maybe I'm all wrong and you know exactly what you are doing, and Maya is becoming the shining star in the next 2 years (I might even want to use it, then). If everything goes according to plan. It often doesn't, like you just said. Thanks for the attention! Best regards, Eugen -- Originalnachricht -- Von: Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.com An: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Gesendet: 09.03.2014 05:51:45 Betreff: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Sebastian, I’ll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes – and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not
RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
so anyone who has made ice a core part of their toolset is essentially stuffed then? ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/https://vimeo.com/user4174293http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd.If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone.Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 08:38:48 + Hi Andi,As many people pointed out I don’t think anything else can be a complete replacement for ICE. Bifrost is not a port of ICE to Maya and that was not the goal nor did I mean to imply that it was. It is just an area of innovation for us in the sense that we are creating something from scratch. A lot of its design of course was influenced heavily by Naiad and by ICE. Maurice Maurice PatelAutodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:30 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ...http://www.hackneyeffects.com/https://vimeo.com/user4174293http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd.If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone.Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 +Hi Sebastian, I’ll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes – and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues – that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division – which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many months of deliberation and it was not something that was undertaken lightly (Autodesk’s annual strategic planning cycle, when decisions like these are typically made, kicks off in earnest in September). There were many factors that led to that decision and although hindsight is great these factors are not always predictable. Several of the plans we had previously made did not work out as expected and so evolved significantly over time. Anyone who has ever had to manage a business or project will probably be familiar with the fact that plans can change quite rapidly (and in unexpected directions) as new events occur and you react to them. To quote someone a whole lot smarter than I: “the best laid plans of mice and men often go
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
I feel the same way. While I can truly comprehend the emotional situation and respect the need to voice it I have a hard time not to respond to some of the assumptions made here about software design and development, ‘code base’, ‘core’, etc. Andy On Mar 09, 2014, at 9:12, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote: I just want to go on the record and say that I've found it really disappointing reading the list over the last week. It seems that there is quite a number people who are very new to it that have just come here to vent in a totally inappropriate manner that goes against all that this list has been about over the years. The great signal-to-noise ratio that everyone lauds has completely tipped off the scale into the negative IMO. I know this is huge news, I know that it feels like a massive kick in the balls and i agree that it's a huge injustice to the software and the people that use and depend on it; but It's telling that so many of the names that made this community (and arguably the software itself) what it is are completely silent or absent from discussions about this. It's obvious that people are upset (myself as well, more than you can imagine) but I feel like I'm reading a forum overrun with spambots... That's my personal reason for being so silent. The saddest thing would be if we can't keep our community coherent. DAN
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
I will continue to use softimage as long as possible, and in parallel evaluate the non autodesk alternatives. MODO will be one of them. mich...@lowend.se 2014-03-09 11:54 GMT+01:00 Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com: Not really thinking about transitioning yet, but it doesn't hurt have it in the tools. tridi.animei...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Octavian Ureche okt...@gmail.com wrote: Would like to take a closer look at it myself. okt...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Steffen Dünner steffen.duen...@gmail.com wrote: We'll jump on the Modo train (at least partly as long as Softimage still runs on current hardware). I think it has great potential and at that pricetag it's really a no-brainer to add to ones arsenal. ;) I've been watching / evaluating it for some time now and so far I have only been pleasantly surprised. Even the deformation / animation / rigging part looks and feels quite mature for the short time it exists. 2014-03-08 21:22 GMT+01:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com : Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93 -- Octavian Ureche +40 732 774 313 (GMT+2) Animation Visual Effects www.okto.ro -- Michael Johansson Artist/Senior Lecturer/Researcher Kristianstad University Digital Design 29188 Kristianstad Email michael.johans...@hkr.se Infobloom Grönegatan 4a 222 24 Lund Email: mich...@lowend.se www.lowend.se www.abadyl.com
Fwd: Your postings...
Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Your postings...
WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
You're not alone. I'm disappointed enough in how the list degenerated for just a handful of irrational people that I find myself desensitised to it. Plenty more reasons not to post than to contribute in some capacity. On 9 Mar 2014 23:21, Andy Goehler lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com wrote: I feel the same way. While I can truly comprehend the emotional situation and respect the need to voice it I have a hard time not to respond to some of the assumptions made here about software design and development, 'code base', 'core', etc. Andy On Mar 09, 2014, at 9:12, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote: I just want to go on the record and say that I've found it really disappointing reading the list over the last week. It seems that there is quite a number people who are very new to it that have just come here to vent in a totally inappropriate manner that goes against all that this list has been about over the years. The great signal-to-noise ratio that everyone lauds has completely tipped off the scale into the negative IMO. I know this is huge news, I know that it feels like a massive kick in the balls and i agree that it's a huge injustice to the software and the people that use and depend on it; but It's telling that so many of the names that made this community (and arguably the software itself) what it is are completely silent or absent from discussions about this. It's obvious that people are upset (myself as well, more than you can imagine) but I feel like I'm reading a forum overrun with spambots... That's my personal reason for being so silent. The saddest thing would be if we can't keep our community coherent. DAN
There's more to this story
Hello everyone. I had been subscribed to this email discussion list since when I graduated from the Softimage 3D program at Seneca College in Toronto in 1999. I had always been amazed by the excitement and dedication of everyone using Softimage 3D and XSI. I didn't participate as often as I would like to because I was looking for employment. I spent the time to enhance the skills I learned from 3D training. I always read the email threads and have found answers amongst you all concerning the how-to's in Softimage. Then I found employment in various jobs around the Greater Toronto area before moving to Eastern Canada taking a position as a character modeler using Maya. I always considered the innovation of character rigging, FXTree, GATOR and ICE to be Softimage's strength. At the place where I work, supervisors received a copy of Maya 2014 from Autodesk to try out. They told me that there were features in Maya that have been working in the past that started to break. So the company stayed with Maya 2013 (don't get me started with my other complaints about that program!). 'Nuff said about myself. After reading the emails concerning Softimage's demise by Autodesk, I was wondering if there is more to this story than what is mentioned... I noticed the response emails from Maurice Patel (of Autodesk) - the discontinuation of Softimage is not necessarily the increasing costs of RD and maintenance but freeing up resources to focus on other areas in Autodesk. Maurice's response led me to think that it wasn't just about Softimage/3DSMax/Maya because I was waiting for new improvements and features for Maya for a long time (besides Bifrost and other Max-like tools). Last year, I remembered Autodesk joined with MakerBot to develop in the emerging 3D Printing market. Here's the link to one article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/autodesk-ceo-carl-bass-future-3-d-printing-home Wasn't there a convention held in 2013 that was a 3D Printing conference that Autodesk had a booth in it? Autodesk also released their app, 123D which incorporated some output to 3D printers. Also a few years ago, Autodesk bought a lonely freeware called, Meshmixer from Ryan Schmidt. Just recently, Autodesk released a update to Meshmixer with 3D printing capabilities. I believe that besides AutoCAD and the Media Entertainment division, Autodesk has focussed its business plan to the emerging 3D Printing market. It sees 3D Printing as a big market to exploit. Aren't we all witnessing that 3D Printing is going to be huge in the long run? I do not work for Autodesk. I'm just an artist like yourselves - constantly learning the skills and craft of CG Animation. I still consider Softimage to be far superior than Maya or 3DS Max (don't get me started on my disdain for 3DSMax!). But I need to look at the other CG software alternatives and concentrate on what employers (Animation studios in North America) require for me to continue in this industry because time is limited. What do you all think? Michael L. Sent from my iPhone
RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Depends for what. While I wouldn't go quite as far as stuffed completely, there's a large amount of people ICE was truly enabling for that will have to invest enormous amounts of effort to get anywhere close to the same potential. Fabric for those unafraid of text and Houdini for those with a focus on effects are great tools. The middle ground of clever artists with little text inclination or time to learn Houdini will need to stick hard to XSI while it works and either work overtime to reskill, or sacrifice small animals to dark gods hoping Fabric 2 or Bifrost will be viable in time. On 9 Mar 2014 23:20, Andi Farhall hack...@outlook.com wrote: so anyone who has made ice a core part of their toolset is essentially stuffed then? ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -- From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 08:38:48 + Hi Andi, As many people pointed out I don't think anything else can be a complete replacement for ICE. Bifrost is not a port of ICE to Maya and that was not the goal nor did I mean to imply that it was. It is just an area of innovation for us in the sense that we are creating something from scratch. A lot of its design of course was influenced heavily by Naiad and by ICE. Maurice *Maurice Patel* Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Andi Farhall *Sent:* Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:30 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -- From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 + Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Thank you for your response Maurice. All this eloquently put, and being the case; if Softimage is not a threat to Maya or Max's growth, and was not being developed at a loss, why not open the SDK to the user base. let the users continue development, it costs nothing to AD to do so, Blender isn't exactly damaging Autodesk in any way, and SI would still be under AD's purview. This would go a long way to soothing the community and quelling this PR nightmare. you could even still monetize it if you want. On 9 March 2014 12:09, Andi Farhall hack...@outlook.com wrote: so anyone who has made ice a core part of their toolset is essentially stuffed then? ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -- From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 08:38:48 + Hi Andi, As many people pointed out I don't think anything else can be a complete replacement for ICE. Bifrost is not a port of ICE to Maya and that was not the goal nor did I mean to imply that it was. It is just an area of innovation for us in the sense that we are creating something from scratch. A lot of its design of course was influenced heavily by Naiad and by ICE. Maurice *Maurice Patel* Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Andi Farhall *Sent:* Sunday, March 09, 2014 4:30 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Hi Maurice, so Bifrost is a success you say, so can we expect it to be at least everything ICE is and more? Will people who transition to Maya end up not missing ICE because that's the number one issue for many of us. Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -- From: maurice.pa...@autodesk.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 04:51:45 + Hi Sebastian, I'll try to answer your question as best I can. I have been reading the threads and trying to figure out how best to answer questions like the one you posed, or even if it was worth it. Especially, given the fact that there is no real reason for anyone here to trust anything I say. I would feel the same if I were standing in your shoes - and I have in the past. Before I answer your question officially for Autodesk I would like to share my own personal experience of situations like these. Once, rather Ironically, when I was working for Softimage in 2000, their leadership team asked me to communicate the decision to stop development on Media Illusion (another acquisition) to our customers, many of whom I had personally trained. These things do not get any easier with time. The decision to make Softimage 2015 the last release was not made because of cost-issues - that is to say it was not done to reduce the operating expenses of the ME division - which is why there was no reduction in work force. The decision was made so that we could focus our efforts on fewer projects enabling us to better execute on them and free resources to research new areas of innovation. Luc-Eric explained this in a bit more detail earlier. The decision was made at the end of last year after many
Re: Your postings...
I don't think posting private emails is professional behaviour at all. That said, since it's been put here for everyone to read - it was a polite request that explained the rationale quite well. Given that there is another thread going with people stating that they aren't happy with the way the list is going at the moment, is it unreasonable for Luc-Eric in his role as moderator to write to someone to say could you ease up a bit on the volume of posts? On 9 March 2014 08:51, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Your postings...
Can't say I would have done the same, but I got to say I see where Luc Eric is coming from. Whether people on the list realise it or not, there are some individuals who are on the side of Soft who are being driven away by all the venom and spittle. Maybe it was Luc Eric's place to write that mail, maybe not, I can't decide, but know he's not entirely wrong. On 9 Mar 2014 23:52, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Your postings...
As you said Paul, this post should be private. That's all I am saying. Artur 2014-03-09 14:03 GMT+01:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: Can't say I would have done the same, but I got to say I see where Luc Eric is coming from. Whether people on the list realise it or not, there are some individuals who are on the side of Soft who are being driven away by all the venom and spittle. Maybe it was Luc Eric's place to write that mail, maybe not, I can't decide, but know he's not entirely wrong. On 9 Mar 2014 23:52, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Your postings...
Luc-Eric wrote to him privately, Mauricio then posted it publicly... On 9 March 2014 09:05, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: As you said Paul, this post should be private. That's all I am saying. Artur 2014-03-09 14:03 GMT+01:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com : Can't say I would have done the same, but I got to say I see where Luc Eric is coming from. Whether people on the list realise it or not, there are some individuals who are on the side of Soft who are being driven away by all the venom and spittle. Maybe it was Luc Eric's place to write that mail, maybe not, I can't decide, but know he's not entirely wrong. On 9 Mar 2014 23:52, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Your postings...
Sorry Luc-Eric. I thought it was the contrary. My Bad. Artur 2014-03-09 14:08 GMT+01:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com: Luc-Eric wrote to him privately, Mauricio then posted it publicly... On 9 March 2014 09:05, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: As you said Paul, this post should be private. That's all I am saying. Artur 2014-03-09 14:03 GMT+01:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: Can't say I would have done the same, but I got to say I see where Luc Eric is coming from. Whether people on the list realise it or not, there are some individuals who are on the side of Soft who are being driven away by all the venom and spittle. Maybe it was Luc Eric's place to write that mail, maybe not, I can't decide, but know he's not entirely wrong. On 9 Mar 2014 23:52, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure there are lots of people and small studios using illegal AD software (be it Maya, Max or Softimage). This is what you get from being a correct guy ... And that's why I WON'T be using AD software NEVER again. I won't get work? That's okay, there are other types of work ... life is more than work. But it still pissed me off. Autodesk ... come to your senses, let us BUY Softimage until at the least 6 months from now and gives as a discount on that price. I'm pretty sure a LOT of users would purchase it, because we know of the potential. And perhaps, if you actually gave users an opportunity, we could actually transition some day to your other applications. But with what you are doing, I'm pretty sure I won't. Mauricio On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx -- gonebadfx.com - your source for bad fx
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
+1
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Since there still seems some chance for improvement of the current situation I have yet another suggestion although I am sure that we can't turn the wheel back. It was stated that quite some schools use Softimage for teaching 3D for obvious reasons. There shouldn't be a reason why they are stopping this instantly. With no other software you can gain so much basic understanding of 3D in a short amount of time so hazzlefree like with Si. Learning 3D can be such a daunting experience. Boy, if I had made my final film with Softimage instead of Maya... No student needs the newest version of a 3D software. Even we professionals very rarely use its full potential. And when you have learned the basics you can easily transfer them to other packages. At the same time it is clear Autodesk can't offer a viable alternative to Si at this point in time. To be honest I don't think there will be an alternative on the horizon without a major rewrite of Maya and we all know how long this can take (How long took Moondust?) Imho, a good compromise for all would be if Autodesk stopped active development besides of bug fixing and opening up the SDK for third party development and let Si remain in its product portfolio. To be honest I find it an absolute ridiculous idea to stop selling a product within 2 weeks time. A product which doesn't cost any more money and has still the potential to earn some shouldn't be put from the market. What if in the future a company decides it needs Softimage for a certain task? Related to this with FabricEngine some promising developments are coming which mean that the host application doesn't necessary needs to be active developed and can nonetheless live on for quite some time by third party development. I see FabricEngine in a form of geriatric care for retired Softimage. That would also give everybody more breath for transitioning to possibly upcoming alternatives. So don't put it this abruptly from the market. It simply doesn't make any sense. Second thought to this. As a solo entrepreneur never having seen a large studio from the inside I have only a notion of how complex large studio piplines for film or games can be. But I find two years for transitioning especially for large studios a ridicioulus short amount of time. Most likely you are cought in production right now, in preproduction for the next show and planning a sequal for a Softimage produced film afterwards. And then you should rebuild your whole pipeline right in the middle within 24 months? Especially in the sensitive state the VFX industry is right in the moment? (I've just watched Life after Pi, quite depressing) So 5 to 10 years would be a much more reasonable amount of time for transitioning especially for the large studios. This would also help that 3rd party development doesn't cease so rapidly. Just my 2 cents. Cheers, Stephan. MP Hi everyone, MP I have an update to the Softimage Transition Plan to share with you: MP When we created the initial Softimage transition plan our desire MP was to provide our customers with MP an easy, no-cost path to transition to either 3ds Max or Maya. MP We have been monitoring all of your MP feedback on the forums, including many direct conversations with our customers, and have made MP adjustments to the transition offering to address your concerns. MP As we had previously announced, a MP program is available to all Softimage customers on Subscription providing you with the option of MP migrating to 3ds Max or Maya via a bundle that will include a MP Softimage license until April 2016. MP Based on your feedback we will be adding the ability to continue to access Softimage indefinitely MP with your Subscription entitlement even after we stop support on MP Softimage in April 2016. We have MP heard you and we want to make sure you can continue to be able to MP access your Softimage projects even MP after the retirement of Softimage. Our intention was not to MP create more burden on you with this MP difficult change. MP As many of you have also asked about this, we would also like to MP clarify what will happen if you do MP not want to transition: your licenses will not stop working. Any licenses you have purchased are MP yours. They are perpetual licenses and will continue working MP whether you are on Subscription or not. MP You will continue to be able to contact support if you need to move a license to a new machine. MP maurice MP Maurice Patel MP Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Great Emilio! Can I make a request? It'd be a good idea if you could add some share buttons or like buttons right at the top of the article. I see them at the bottom of the page, but they're in the footer I'm not sure if they'd link directly to your article. -Paul ᐧ On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: URGENT: Consolidation of Questions
I see only a blank page.. Rob \/-\/\/ On 8-3-2014 21:33, Jason S wrote: Can this link be accesed? or is it just me? On 03/08/14 14:22, Doeke Wartena wrote: here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10reItsMpXD309tOH7ZVF3trh6cHMmEtlNEdJWK7pnpM/edit?usp=sharing - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4335 / Virus Database: 3722/7170 - Release Date: 03/09/14
Re: Update to the Softtimage Transition Plan
Question is actually is does any of these concerns comes anywhere near people taht can make any decision at all even by long shot, or they are all filtered and fire walled by poor souls that in front of AD have to receive negative feedback from Softimage guys? It is simply possible that all these complains simply gets filtered, anything that has anything to do with same Softimage options is pushed to spam, end of story, and those that ask about Maya transition they are ok. And just one more thing to add and really nothing else is left to say. To a lot of people Softimage is really ONLY solution and tool they can use in daily work to be productive and competitive. Transferring to anything else, either AD horses max and maya or others on the market houdini max will render them efficient enough to fight for place on market which is hard even as it is. So beside working every day you need to learn new thing too.. Do you really think that people now have time for that? O to simply just stop working for a month or more to learnt new tool and then start working gain. And remember people have to eat every day, pay bills... So whoever thought of brilliant idea: oh they ca just move to another tool have NO IDEA how this work is done and what it means to find any time per day or week for learning beside trying to work for living. But how they could know, their bank accounts are filled that they can stop working and earning now and would be set for couple generations... Us, normal working people actually depend on daily and monthly income. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Stephan Hempel elh...@gmail.com wrote: Since there still seems some chance for improvement of the current situation I have yet another suggestion although I am sure that we can't turn the wheel back. It was stated that quite some schools use Softimage for teaching 3D for obvious reasons. There shouldn't be a reason why they are stopping this instantly. With no other software you can gain so much basic understanding of 3D in a short amount of time so hazzlefree like with Si. Learning 3D can be such a daunting experience. Boy, if I had made my final film with Softimage instead of Maya... No student needs the newest version of a 3D software. Even we professionals very rarely use its full potential. And when you have learned the basics you can easily transfer them to other packages. At the same time it is clear Autodesk can't offer a viable alternative to Si at this point in time. To be honest I don't think there will be an alternative on the horizon without a major rewrite of Maya and we all know how long this can take (How long took Moondust?) Imho, a good compromise for all would be if Autodesk stopped active development besides of bug fixing and opening up the SDK for third party development and let Si remain in its product portfolio. To be honest I find it an absolute ridiculous idea to stop selling a product within 2 weeks time. A product which doesn't cost any more money and has still the potential to earn some shouldn't be put from the market. What if in the future a company decides it needs Softimage for a certain task? Related to this with FabricEngine some promising developments are coming which mean that the host application doesn't necessary needs to be active developed and can nonetheless live on for quite some time by third party development. I see FabricEngine in a form of geriatric care for retired Softimage. That would also give everybody more breath for transitioning to possibly upcoming alternatives. So don't put it this abruptly from the market. It simply doesn't make any sense. Second thought to this. As a solo entrepreneur never having seen a large studio from the inside I have only a notion of how complex large studio piplines for film or games can be. But I find two years for transitioning especially for large studios a ridicioulus short amount of time. Most likely you are cought in production right now, in preproduction for the next show and planning a sequal for a Softimage produced film afterwards. And then you should rebuild your whole pipeline right in the middle within 24 months? Especially in the sensitive state the VFX industry is right in the moment? (I've just watched Life after Pi, quite depressing) So 5 to 10 years would be a much more reasonable amount of time for transitioning especially for the large studios. This would also help that 3rd party development doesn't cease so rapidly. Just my 2 cents. Cheers, Stephan. MP Hi everyone, MP I have an update to the Softimage Transition Plan to share with you: MP When we created the initial Softimage transition plan our desire MP was to provide our customers with MP an easy, no-cost path to transition to either 3ds Max or Maya. MP We have been monitoring all of your MP feedback on the forums, including many direct conversations with our customers, and have made MP adjustments to the transition
Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users
Seriously, this whole renderlayer/passes/attrubition map/override thing in Maya is enough to kill yourself. Slowly, with a blunt knife... Rob \/-\/\/ On 8-3-2014 22:20, Cristobal Infante wrote: Also render passes do exist they are just a bit different (though I've never worked with them) http://lesterbanks.com/2014/02/working-maya-render-layers-render-passes/ On 8 March 2014 21:17, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com mailto:g...@janimation.com wrote: And, one of most important thing is, there is no *Subdivision* modeling in Maya. There used to be, but it's gone. They normally use *Smooth* to render... how ridiculous software is that... I have heard some crap about maya that blows my mind but I am pretty sure you are missing something.. otherwise there would be Maya users jumping off bridges everywherethey already cant edit in multi mode why would I do that?? I would just write a script to do it said the maya user...sigh No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4335 / Virus Database: 3722/7170 - Release Date: 03/09/14
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
nice article emilio. 2014-03-09 14:51 GMT+01:00 Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com: Great Emilio! Can I make a request? It'd be a good idea if you could add some share buttons or like buttons right at the top of the article. I see them at the bottom of the page, but they're in the footer I'm not sure if they'd link directly to your article. -Paul ᐧ On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
+1 Let's steer the ship then. Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 13:20, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: +1
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
+1 On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Last I heard he was trying to set something up for sometime next week. As soon as I hear anything else I'll post an update. -Tim On 3/9/2014 3:26 AM, Daniel Sweeney wrote: Will be evaluating modo too. Have a duel pipeline for as long as soft works I think. Wonder if this webinar with brad will happen soon? Be good to hear some input. On Mar 8, 2014 11:20 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com mailto:jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Agree that that should be part of the final requests... apart from the new Softimaya part. At least existing clients can. On 03/08/14 18:13, Jordi Bares wrote: The problem is buying licenses.. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Mar 2014, at 20:55, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com mailto:emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well there is always the option to hire some Softimage freelancers to add more seats to your studio in case you need them. Fortunatley we are at a stage now, that archives can be easily move from any part of the world. You can easily integrate this kind of workflow and additional Softimage seats to your pipeline, without actually having to buy more licenses. Just a thought. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-08 14:50 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com: At realise we were about to embark on a project and were contemplating the idea of getting a couple of Softimage licenses, in parallel we are testing Modo too to complement the modelling side but now seems the Softimage route is closed so we will either wait to see what Side Effects do as a result of the Softimage fiasco or buy modo and invest on it. seems likely we will go Modo Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Mar 2014, at 20:22, David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com mailto:activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com wrote: Hi, I was really touched by some of the in-depth opinions about leaving SI. TD´s perspective, and other users who have dedicated their lives (literally) to build a rock-solid pipeline for studios all around the world using softimage, have really made me think a lot into consideration. So, to cut a long story short, I´d like to know if there´s a thread in the list that´s already being aligned into the Softimage/MODO transition? If not, I´d like to start it off with this post. I´m going into MODO and here´s my email: david_rivera...@yahoo.com mailto:david_rivera...@yahoo.com Thanks. *David Rivera* /3D Compositor/Animator/ LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- Signature
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','emi...@e-roja.com'); wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Migrate Ice
I hope it gets as broad a scope as ICE and can be used for other things than flip fluid sims... Although just those great flip fluid sims will attract much attention by itself I bet... ducks
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comwrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Softimage udp data
Hi Guys, could yo make Gudd work succesfully? the python script that comes for testing is working good, i receive the udp data, but somehow is not working with Softimage. Thanks in advance! F. On Thursday, November 28, 2013, francisco criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, just wondering if there is a simple way to get udp data into softimage. I've been reading this; http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/sdkdocs/examples/Addons/XSIServer/netview_xsiserver.htm but since i'm not a programmer, i have no idea where to start :s Maybe there is an addon or plugin already done that would let connect incoming data to a primitive? Thanks in advance. Francisco.
Re: Your postings...
Well I read a more unprofessional post of someone telling other one, that he was biased because he was fired from Autodesk. We were all professionals 20 years ago? If fresh blood is coming to this list, in first place to seek help and knowledge, and he gets caught in the middle of this mayhem suddenly he is not able to express how he feels, while the rest of us are doing it? I am not judging, nor I am who to say if it was right or wrong for Mauricio to post a private mail. But he has the right to do it. True is this list because of the events that developed just last Tuesday, has been driven away from its essence. It is normal. Will it ever be the same? I don't know. I hope so. So the people like me, that are staying with Softimage until Autodesk or some one else comes with a better solution for me. That by conviction I will adopt, like it was the case with Softimage 3D and not because I am forced to, can continue learning, sharing and why not? Have a good time with all of you, as we are spread all over the world. And even that I don't know you in person, at this stage I feel I am part of a big family. I never saw Mauricio jumping on threads about tech stuff and start posting out of place. But anyway the tidal wave is settling and after the waters retire we will see what is left. Then we can start bulding again. You can count with my two hands to do so. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 7:12 GMT-06:00 Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com: Sorry Luc-Eric. I thought it was the contrary. My Bad. Artur 2014-03-09 14:08 GMT+01:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com: Luc-Eric wrote to him privately, Mauricio then posted it publicly... On 9 March 2014 09:05, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: As you said Paul, this post should be private. That's all I am saying. Artur 2014-03-09 14:03 GMT+01:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: Can't say I would have done the same, but I got to say I see where Luc Eric is coming from. Whether people on the list realise it or not, there are some individuals who are on the side of Soft who are being driven away by all the venom and spittle. Maybe it was Luc Eric's place to write that mail, maybe not, I can't decide, but know he's not entirely wrong. On 9 Mar 2014 23:52, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.com wrote: WTF Luc-Eric? This attitude drives Autodesk policies I see. Artur 2014-03-09 13:44 GMT+01:00 Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com: Unsubscribing right now. A nice sunday to all. With regards, Maurício -- Forwarded message -- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 9:35 AM Subject: Your postings... To: goneba...@gmail.com Mauricio, your input in a appreciated in some volume, but given that you just have a few months of experience learing Softimage, can you hold back a little bit on posting leave the bandwidth the thousand or so pro users on this mailing list? The mills, animal logic and others are here, there is no need for you to speak for them - this isn't a cgtalk forum with a bunch of hobbyst/daydreamers, this is the real thing! This list is setup for the long time users of softimage. There is already a thread about all the sudden a few people we've never heard about that are coming on the list to vent. Again this list is a THOUSAND members, most of them with 10 to 20 years of softimage experience. We want to hear from them and not have them driven away. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Maurício PC goneba...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Emilio ... I guess what makes more sad is that the only software I ever felt comfortable was Softimage. I've never worked with it on production, I just studied. And now I'll need to learn Maya because the future is Maya? Hell ... I only had the dream of working with in 3D for films because of Softimage. I knew there were studios using it and that maybe I would get the chance to work there. But now ... what's left of a student to do? I could study Max or Maya, put my head down, and work in the industry with this ... but I don't want to. Man, if I had the money RIGHT NOW I would buy the last version of Softimage to continue working in it forever. 3D also needs to be fun and with Softimage it is. So what AD did is prevent me from working with Softimage in the future with movies and it's preventing me from even buying the f*cking software as I needed to gather the money for it in one month That's not fair at all, reasonable, nothing. If I only had more cujones I would use a cracked version of Softimage for the rest of my life and send a f*ck you AD and continue life. It's funny when you want to do things by the book (buying legal software, licenses, etc), you are hurt more than people who simply don't care. I'm pretty sure
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Raffaele, let me clarify something i wrote wrong, in my case wasn't a reseller, it was autodesk mexico, my mistake. But anyways everything you said applies to this. F. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Resellers have always hated having it added to their portfolio, most had spent years telling people it was crap and they should buy Maya instead, which was also a bit pricier at many times, and not a new investment to manage. Plenty stories like this one to go around. It's more the reseller than AD, mind, but it's not like AD ever had any interest in rectifying. Not that that's how reseller relationships work anyway. On 10 Mar 2014 01:52, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com'); wrote: That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','malcriad...@gmail.com'); wrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','g...@janimation.com'); wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
RE: Migrate Ice
Talking about this very topic and what we could do with this new framework is where we want contributors. The big thing we have tried to deal with this in this new framework is scale. A decent machine is chunking through 30-40 m particles and displaying that in the viewport which is impossible in Maya 2014. A great machine with lots of RAM (64 g) was working with 200 m flip particles. We are literally rendering out the scenes that will make up the new feature videos to show this off and I will probably just leak it here to keep the conversation going. The best starting point for the discussion is this article: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/bifrost-the-return-of-the-naiad-team-with-a-bridge-to-ice/ But for those of that have signed up for a private discussion we will talk much more about what we are doing and what we could do to in the transition time frame so you can compare your options. cv/ From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Gustavo Eggert Boehs [gustav...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 10:51 AM To: SI mailing list Subject: Re: Migrate Ice I hope it gets as broad a scope as ICE and can be used for other things than flip fluid sims... Although just those great flip fluid sims will attract much attention by itself I bet... ducks attachment: winmail.dat
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Indeed Raffael. They tried to flood my studio with Maya once after the acquisition, they even installed Maya in every workstation I had, I said I was not paying for any. The answer was no problem, I will leave you an open license for as long as you want. Maya is better. Yeah better for them as it is more expensive and they have a bigger cut in their comission. @Francisco. I was called to participate in the Huevocartoon movie as I am an old Softiamge guy around here. It really suprised me when I knew they chose Softimage to go with it. A couple of the Maya artists that I describe in the article, actually were the first ones to contact me. And they told me how they have been blind using Maya and not giving a chance to Softimage before. Unfortunatley as the movie was beeing produced in Guadalajara, at that moment I wasn't able to move as I am in Mexico City dealing with other stuff. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 9:42 GMT-06:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: Resellers have always hated having it added to their portfolio, most had spent years telling people it was crap and they should buy Maya instead, which was also a bit pricier at many times, and not a new investment to manage. Plenty stories like this one to go around. It's more the reseller than AD, mind, but it's not like AD ever had any interest in rectifying. Not that that's how reseller relationships work anyway. On 10 Mar 2014 01:52, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comwrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Your postings...
Agreed... Emilio Hernandez schreef op 9-3-2014 16:51: Well I read a more unprofessional post of someone telling other one, that he was biased because he was fired from Autodesk. We were all professionals 20 years ago? If fresh blood is coming to this list, in first place to seek help and knowledge, and he gets caught in the middle of this mayhem suddenly he is not able to express how he feels, while the rest of us are doing it? I am not judging, nor I am who to say if it was right or wrong for Mauricio to post a private mail. But he has the right to do it. True is this list because of the events that developed just last Tuesday, has been driven away from its essence. It is normal. Will it ever be the same? I don't know. I hope so. So the people like me, that are staying with Softimage until Autodesk or some one else comes with a better solution for me. That by conviction I will adopt, like it was the case with Softimage 3D and not because I am forced to, can continue learning, sharing and why not? Have a good time with all of you, as we are spread all over the world. And even that I don't know you in person, at this stage I feel I am part of a big family. I never saw Mauricio jumping on threads about tech stuff and start posting out of place. But anyway the tidal wave is settling and after the waters retire we will see what is left. Then we can start bulding again. You can count with my two hands to do so. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Emilio, i was the guy interviewing all staff at the beginning of production, via Skype to the guys on DF and personally on Gdl, so we had to have a chat for sure. Gabriel (the director) WAS one of my best friends, and when he came to me and told me he wanted to do the third movie on 3d in two years only...well there is only one software than can do that! When asked to Autodesk, to send me some softimage artists from their database, maya portfolios began to rain, and the fight began, they saying there was enough users, and at the same time finding myself a lot of softimage people from Ana movie and other places that were amazing animators. F. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Indeed Raffael. They tried to flood my studio with Maya once after the acquisition, they even installed Maya in every workstation I had, I said I was not paying for any. The answer was no problem, I will leave you an open license for as long as you want. Maya is better. Yeah better for them as it is more expensive and they have a bigger cut in their comission. @Francisco. I was called to participate in the Huevocartoon movie as I am an old Softiamge guy around here. It really suprised me when I knew they chose Softimage to go with it. A couple of the Maya artists that I describe in the article, actually were the first ones to contact me. And they told me how they have been blind using Maya and not giving a chance to Softimage before. Unfortunatley as the movie was beeing produced in Guadalajara, at that moment I wasn't able to move as I am in Mexico City dealing with other stuff. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 9:42 GMT-06:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','raffsxsil...@googlemail.com'); : Resellers have always hated having it added to their portfolio, most had spent years telling people it was crap and they should buy Maya instead, which was also a bit pricier at many times, and not a new investment to manage. Plenty stories like this one to go around. It's more the reseller than AD, mind, but it's not like AD ever had any interest in rectifying. Not that that's how reseller relationships work anyway. On 10 Mar 2014 01:52, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com'); wrote: That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','malcriad...@gmail.com'); wrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','g...@janimation.com'); wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Your postings...
Yeah not really professional to post a private email to the list honestly. This type of behavior is something that has only become more common as more and more people have hopped on the list and there hasn't been a push to keep things professional and respectful over the past few years. People are emotional and motivated by the recent events, but there is no reason to not be professional and respectful at the same time. That's how the list was when I joined and it's how I hope it would continue. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:02 PM, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nlwrote: Agreed... Emilio Hernandez schreef op 9-3-2014 16:51: Well I read a more unprofessional post of someone telling other one, that he was biased because he was fired from Autodesk. We were all professionals 20 years ago? If fresh blood is coming to this list, in first place to seek help and knowledge, and he gets caught in the middle of this mayhem suddenly he is not able to express how he feels, while the rest of us are doing it? I am not judging, nor I am who to say if it was right or wrong for Mauricio to post a private mail. But he has the right to do it. True is this list because of the events that developed just last Tuesday, has been driven away from its essence. It is normal. Will it ever be the same? I don't know. I hope so. So the people like me, that are staying with Softimage until Autodesk or some one else comes with a better solution for me. That by conviction I will adopt, like it was the case with Softimage 3D and not because I am forced to, can continue learning, sharing and why not? Have a good time with all of you, as we are spread all over the world. And even that I don't know you in person, at this stage I feel I am part of a big family. I never saw Mauricio jumping on threads about tech stuff and start posting out of place. But anyway the tidal wave is settling and after the waters retire we will see what is left. Then we can start bulding again. You can count with my two hands to do so. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Hey then we talked. I couldnt move from Mexico City to Guadalajara at that time. Funny though last friday I was with Alex Iturmendi and he started talking abouy you. El mar 9, 2014 10:39 AM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com escribió: Emilio, i was the guy interviewing all staff at the beginning of production, via Skype to the guys on DF and personally on Gdl, so we had to have a chat for sure. Gabriel (the director) WAS one of my best friends, and when he came to me and told me he wanted to do the third movie on 3d in two years only...well there is only one software than can do that! When asked to Autodesk, to send me some softimage artists from their database, maya portfolios began to rain, and the fight began, they saying there was enough users, and at the same time finding myself a lot of softimage people from Ana movie and other places that were amazing animators. F. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Indeed Raffael. They tried to flood my studio with Maya once after the acquisition, they even installed Maya in every workstation I had, I said I was not paying for any. The answer was no problem, I will leave you an open license for as long as you want. Maya is better. Yeah better for them as it is more expensive and they have a bigger cut in their comission. @Francisco. I was called to participate in the Huevocartoon movie as I am an old Softiamge guy around here. It really suprised me when I knew they chose Softimage to go with it. A couple of the Maya artists that I describe in the article, actually were the first ones to contact me. And they told me how they have been blind using Maya and not giving a chance to Softimage before. Unfortunatley as the movie was beeing produced in Guadalajara, at that moment I wasn't able to move as I am in Mexico City dealing with other stuff. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 9:42 GMT-06:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com : Resellers have always hated having it added to their portfolio, most had spent years telling people it was crap and they should buy Maya instead, which was also a bit pricier at many times, and not a new investment to manage. Plenty stories like this one to go around. It's more the reseller than AD, mind, but it's not like AD ever had any interest in rectifying. Not that that's how reseller relationships work anyway. On 10 Mar 2014 01:52, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Perfect Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: http://e-roja.com/the-truth-about-softimage-and-autodesk/ --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- Signatu
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- Signatu
Re: Your postings...
Might be an idea to abandon this conversation/thread. Much of what could be added here about the state of the list isn't really directed at the person that started it IMHO. Greetz Leendert Eric Thivierge schreef op 9-3-2014 17:40: Yeah not really professional to post a private email to the list honestly. This type of behavior is something that has only become more common as more and more people have hopped on the list and there hasn't been a push to keep things professional and respectful over the past few years. People are emotional and motivated by the recent events, but there is no reason to not be professional and respectful at the same time. That's how the list was when I joined and it's how I hope it would continue. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com -- Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com http://creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com mailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim --
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
not really, and not as easy unfortunately.. Rob \/-\/\/ On 9-3-2014 17:51, Tim Crowson wrote: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Hope he was talking about me in a good way :) he was one of my mentors, with Victor Wolansky, had the pleasure to work with both of them. Say hi from me ! Sorry to the rest of the list if this went OT. Anyways, i can speak from the latin american side, and say that Autodesk never had any intention for getting Soft in the market. Mexico and Argentinian offices only care about their industrial/architectural products. F. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Hey then we talked. I couldnt move from Mexico City to Guadalajara at that time. Funny though last friday I was with Alex Iturmendi and he started talking abouy you. El mar 9, 2014 10:39 AM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','malcriad...@gmail.com'); escribió: Emilio, i was the guy interviewing all staff at the beginning of production, via Skype to the guys on DF and personally on Gdl, so we had to have a chat for sure. Gabriel (the director) WAS one of my best friends, and when he came to me and told me he wanted to do the third movie on 3d in two years only...well there is only one software than can do that! When asked to Autodesk, to send me some softimage artists from their database, maya portfolios began to rain, and the fight began, they saying there was enough users, and at the same time finding myself a lot of softimage people from Ana movie and other places that were amazing animators. F. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Indeed Raffael. They tried to flood my studio with Maya once after the acquisition, they even installed Maya in every workstation I had, I said I was not paying for any. The answer was no problem, I will leave you an open license for as long as you want. Maya is better. Yeah better for them as it is more expensive and they have a bigger cut in their comission. @Francisco. I was called to participate in the Huevocartoon movie as I am an old Softiamge guy around here. It really suprised me when I knew they chose Softimage to go with it. A couple of the Maya artists that I describe in the article, actually were the first ones to contact me. And they told me how they have been blind using Maya and not giving a chance to Softimage before. Unfortunatley as the movie was beeing produced in Guadalajara, at that moment I wasn't able to move as I am in Mexico City dealing with other stuff. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-09 9:42 GMT-06:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com : Resellers have always hated having it added to their portfolio, most had spent years telling people it was crap and they should buy Maya instead, which was also a bit pricier at many times, and not a new investment to manage. Plenty stories like this one to go around. It's more the reseller than AD, mind, but it's not like AD ever had any interest in rectifying. Not that that's how reseller relationships work anyway. On 10 Mar 2014 01:52, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: That is how AD was trying to support Softimage but it didn;t work... Looks like they messed up and instead letting people buy Softimage they made it harder On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.comwrote: Emilio, thanks for the article, and thanks for putting un gallo con muchos huevos as a sample of Softimage in production, but i have to tell you that even that the movie was originally planned (by me, i'm the guilty one jeje) to be done entirely in Softimage, when i was ripped oft the movie, the new td and the AD reseller's influence decided to go Maya. the only part of the production that stayed on Soft was, animatic, layout and animation.Last week with the all eol mess i published an article like yours in my fb, and all my ex coworkers at Huevocartoon began replying at me telling me that they saw how the movie started to begin having production problems with maya in the middle...anyways, nice to see in Mexico Softimage is more than welcome, sadly the reseller is not interested in selling it, when i made the purchase for Huevocartoon (60 licenses if my memory doesnt fail) i almost had to put a gun on reseller's head to give me Softimage instead of Maya. On Sunday, March 9, 2014, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Perfect
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
That is the best that I could found... Sigh El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com'); escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- -- --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
I think you need to edit the Maya environment file to add a network location where plug-ins will be found. There are also some maya module type files that come with plug-ins that have something to do with it as well. I would have more info for you if I was at work. Also look up info on the userSetup.py files. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com wrote: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- Signatu
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
And my follow up question would be can we append multiple paths to those envars, so we can point to multiple locations at once? On 3/9/2014 12:02 PM, Tim Crowson wrote: That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com http://creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com mailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- -- Signature
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
Oh sorry I got it know hahaha I am in my phone and I just read Maya and Plugins. El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com escribió: That is the best that I could found... Sigh El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com'); escribió: That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- -- --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. -- --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation.
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Hi Emilio, I think your article reveals a number of difficult truths. But indeed difficult they are.. meaning, the openness of whom ever it may concern, is something that can be very sensitive/delicate, and that openness is crucial for any points to actually come across. I myself admit having been somewhat guilty of "overdoing-it", recalling an "AutoBorg" statement (before the reversal) While I don't think your article was necessarily disrespectfull, but reading through it, it definitely feels like stream of accusations at times, and if I were in the shoes of a receiver of that article, I would be compelled to just deny everything, or having to filter-out few bits that can be taken, or just dismiss the whole thing at the first paragraph. Diplomacy can indeed be quite touchy. Whithout at-all comparing your peice to a purely resentful message, I will quote what I wrote on Si Community to McAxe who made an image of electrodes zapping Autodesk.. FXDude Post subject:Re: The silent protest Posted:08 Mar 2014, 02:59 Joined:19 Jun 2012, 20:59 Posts:52 Hi McAxe, sorry I don't want to ruin your efforts, but I swear that hatefulness in of itself (or portrail of such), although it can be like an unthought reflex and may vent some inner-pressure, it can only ultimately be counter-productive. Meaning that anger can be like "tamed" and "channeled" to make criticism (or critical artwork) be; - Constructive allowing anyone concerned to reflect, consider remain open to criticism (when it's respectful) - as opposed to Destructive, *reducing credibility*, making anyone concerned become resentful, build-up defenses, while either taking offense or (then legitimately) disregarding the criticism in question (thus becoming in vain), with a heightened tendency to then close-up when it comes other criticism in general on a given issue, dismissing them as just.. well .. hateful. Also while inciting more similar behavior. Case in point, as you may or may not know, the decision to make SI expire by 2016 has been lifted !(in a frozen development state) and that is most-probably not from any "F#$ Autodesk" remarks. ; ) And there is still room to perhaps open-up the SDK (crossing fingers) Cheers : ) Last edited byFXDudeon 08 Mar 2014, 03:21, edited 1 time in total. Cheers :)
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
Yes, you can append paths. I assume you mean MAYA_PLUGIN_PATH and MAYA_MODULE_PATH? about distributing modules: http://around-the-corner.typepad.com/adn/2012/07/distributing-files-on-maya-maya-modules.html On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 1:05 PM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.comwrote: And my follow up question would be can we append multiple paths to those envars, so we can point to multiple locations at once? On 3/9/2014 12:02 PM, Tim Crowson wrote: That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- --
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
Dan, thanks for making the effort to write this. +1 -M -- Martin Chatterjee [ Freelance Technical Director ] [ http://www.chatterjee.de ] [ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: +1 Let's steer the ship then. Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 13:20, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: +1
Re: Maya equivalent to Workgroups?
That's correct, Stephen. Thanks. -Tim On 3/9/2014 12:16 PM, Stephen Blair wrote: Yes, you can append paths. I assume you mean MAYA_PLUGIN_PATH and MAYA_MODULE_PATH? about distributing modules: http://around-the-corner.typepad.com/adn/2012/07/distributing-files-on-maya-maya-modules.html On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 1:05 PM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com mailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com wrote: And my follow up question would be can we append multiple paths to those envars, so we can point to multiple locations at once? On 3/9/2014 12:02 PM, Tim Crowson wrote: That's more like the equivalent to rray.de/xsi. http://rray.de/xsi... ;-) Looking at the Maya docs, I'm guessing I need to implement environment variables to point to a different path for plugins and scripts at launch... -Tim On 3/9/2014 11:52 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: creativecrash.com http://creativecrash.com El mar 9, 2014 10:50 AM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com mailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com escribió: Is there anything like XSI's Workgroups in Maya for sharing plugins across a network? -Tim -- --
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Yes Jason. Indeed it is a streaming of accusations. That I cant deny. Autodesk told us they tried. But Imho it was a smoke curtain all the time. It is still a mystery why they kill Softimage. They say it is to focuse in the future and not distract valuable resources from the future developments they are experimenting. I don't completley buy that either. Ok something better is coming... Start first convincing your customers that you are working in something better. Then when it finally arrives start doing presentations. If it is really better we will all start going for it. But they are dragging us by force to Max or Maya. A light of reason was finally depicted at Autodesk by changing their Softimage super burial and you will never ever find the tombstonebafter 2016, to a more coma state where we can stay with him for as long as we want. But just when Softimage is gainning momentum and is coming back at a faster pace... Bamm! A bullet straight to the head. Maybe I work to much in movies or advertising. But this looks like several stories I had watch before. And I am pointing at Autodesk that maybe they had a dream that they tried. But the truth to my eyes says the opposite. El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com escribió: Hi Emilio, I think your article reveals a number of difficult truths. But indeed difficult they are.. meaning, the openness of whom ever it may concern, is something that can be very sensitive/delicate, and that openness is crucial for any points to actually come across. I myself admit having been somewhat guilty of overdoing-it, recalling an AutoBorg statement (before the reversal) While I don't think your article was necessarily disrespectfull, but reading through it, it definitely feels like stream of accusations at times, and if I were in the shoes of a receiver of that article, I would be compelled to just deny everything, or having to filter-out few bits that can be taken, or just dismiss the whole thing at the first paragraph. Diplomacy can indeed be quite touchy. Whithout at-all comparing your peice to a purely resentful message, I will quote what I wrote on Si Community to McAxe who made an image of electrodes zapping Autodesk.. *FXDude* *Post subject:* Re: The silent protest [image: Post]http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=42382#p42382 *Posted:* 08 Mar 2014, 02:59 [image: Offline] [image: User avatar] *Joined:* 19 Jun 2012, 20:59 *Posts:* 52 Hi McAxe, sorry I don't want to ruin your efforts, but I swear that hatefulness in of itself (or portrail of such), although it can be like an unthought reflex and may vent some inner-pressure, it can only ultimately be counter-productive. Meaning that anger can be like tamed and channeled to make criticism (or critical artwork [image: :)] ) be; - Constructive allowing anyone concerned to reflect, consider remain open to criticism (when it's respectful) - as opposed to Destructive, *reducing credibility*, making anyone concerned become resentful, build-up defenses, while either taking offense or (then legitimately) disregarding the criticism in question (thus becoming in vain), with a heightened tendency to then close-up when it comes other criticism in general on a given issue, dismissing them as just.. well .. hateful. Also while inciting more similar behavior. Case in point, as you may or may not know, the decision to make SI expire by 2016 has been lifted ! [image: :)] (in a frozen development state) and that is most-probably not from any F#$ Autodesk remarks. *;* ) And there is still room to perhaps open-up the SDK (crossing fingers) Cheers : ) Last edited by FXDudehttp://www.si-community.com/community/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofileu=2608 on 08 Mar 2014, 03:21, edited 1 time in total. Cheers :) -- --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. inline: file.phpinline: 1.gifinline: icon_user_offline.pnginline: icon_post_target.png
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
By the way, I'm quite sceptic about AD's definition of innovation (read buy and integrate...). Or at leat those that made their way to the DCCs. --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2014-03-09 18:41 GMT+01:00 Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com: Yes Jason. Indeed it is a streaming of accusations. That I cant deny. Autodesk told us they tried. But Imho it was a smoke curtain all the time. It is still a mystery why they kill Softimage. They say it is to focuse in the future and not distract valuable resources from the future developments they are experimenting. I don't completley buy that either. Ok something better is coming... Start first convincing your customers that you are working in something better. Then when it finally arrives start doing presentations. If it is really better we will all start going for it. But they are dragging us by force to Max or Maya. A light of reason was finally depicted at Autodesk by changing their Softimage super burial and you will never ever find the tombstonebafter 2016, to a more coma state where we can stay with him for as long as we want. But just when Softimage is gainning momentum and is coming back at a faster pace... Bamm! A bullet straight to the head. Maybe I work to much in movies or advertising. But this looks like several stories I had watch before. And I am pointing at Autodesk that maybe they had a dream that they tried. But the truth to my eyes says the opposite. El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com escribió: Hi Emilio, I think your article reveals a number of difficult truths. But indeed difficult they are.. meaning, the openness of whom ever it may concern, is something that can be very sensitive/delicate, and that openness is crucial for any points to actually come across. I myself admit having been somewhat guilty of overdoing-it, recalling an AutoBorg statement (before the reversal) While I don't think your article was necessarily disrespectfull, but reading through it, it definitely feels like stream of accusations at times, and if I were in the shoes of a receiver of that article, I would be compelled to just deny everything, or having to filter-out few bits that can be taken, or just dismiss the whole thing at the first paragraph. Diplomacy can indeed be quite touchy. Whithout at-all comparing your peice to a purely resentful message, I will quote what I wrote on Si Community to McAxe who made an image of electrodes zapping Autodesk.. *FXDude* *Post subject:* Re: The silent protest [image: Post]http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=42382#p42382 *Posted:* 08 Mar 2014, 02:59 [image: Offline] [image: User avatar] *Joined:* 19 Jun 2012, 20:59 *Posts:* 52 Hi McAxe, sorry I don't want to ruin your efforts, but I swear that hatefulness in of itself (or portrail of such), although it can be like an unthought reflex and may vent some inner-pressure, it can only ultimately be counter-productive. Meaning that anger can be like tamed and channeled to make criticism (or critical artwork [image: :)] ) be; - Constructive allowing anyone concerned to reflect, consider remain open to criticism (when it's respectful) - as opposed to Destructive, *reducing credibility*, making anyone concerned become resentful, build-up defenses, while either taking offense or (then legitimately) disregarding the criticism in question (thus becoming in vain), with a heightened tendency to then close-up when it comes other criticism in general on a given issue, dismissing them as just.. well .. hateful. Also while inciting more similar behavior. Case in point, as you may or may not know, the decision to make SI expire by 2016 has been lifted ! [image: :)] (in a frozen development state) and that is most-probably not from any F#$ Autodesk remarks. *;* ) And there is still room to perhaps open-up the SDK (crossing fingers) Cheers : ) Last edited by FXDudehttp://www.si-community.com/community/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofileu=2608 on 08 Mar 2014, 03:21, edited 1 time in total. Cheers :) -- --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. inline: 1.gifinline: icon_post_target.pnginline: file.phpinline: icon_user_offline.png
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
...looking forward to spending some time with Modo... c...@glarestudios.de On 08/03/14 23:36, Eugen Sares wrote: Looking into it as well now... m...@eugensares.at mailto:m...@eugensares.at
Re: Sadness about the state of the list...
Personnaly, I'd just like the list goes back to Softimage (and friends) business only. I'm a bit fed-up with the subjects asking /how to do this in Maya/, all those /transition/ threads, and special dedicace to all those who want to /integrate SI techs within Maya/ It's like having SI body still hot and people asking for a kidney. I think it's ok asking time to time advices or comparission or equivalent with another package, but 50% of discussions is around this. I think it was ok talking about tech portability between softwares, but now it turns obscene. Remember people saying how good it would be to get the best of both world ? Well now there is only one world left. I think Autodesk salary men should contact their former SI clients privatly (since it seems they have lists) and make their commercial offers that way. Specially when you think of all the silent when we really needed them. Here , it's a technical and artist list of people working (and loving) with XSI. It's not dead, it's functionnal for 2 years. My very personnal opinion of the list. Le 09/03/2014 18:22, Eric Turman a écrit : +1, Thank you Dan. There are a few of us, like Greg Punchatz, who have already been attempting to do so. Let us old-timers be an example of professionalism. There is an individual by the name of Victor Frankel who was interned in a Nazi death camp during World War II; he was able to convert his horrific experience into one of personal positive growth. He basically came to the realization the we, as humans, can have all of our liberties taken away but we still have a freedom that no-one can take away from us --ever: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms---to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. -- Viktor E. Frankl http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2782.Viktor_E_Frankl, /Man's Search for Meaning http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3389674/ If you can take time, it is a very worthwhile read. -=Eric Turman On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:18 PM, Martin Chatterjee martin.chatterjee.li...@googlemail.com mailto:martin.chatterjee.li...@googlemail.com wrote: Dan, thanks for making the effort to write this. +1 -M -- Martin Chatterjee [ Freelance Technical Director ] [ http://www.chatterjee.de http://www.chatterjee.de/ ] [ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: +1 Let's steer the ship then. Sent from my iPhone On 9 Mar 2014, at 13:20, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com mailto:ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: +1 -- -=T=-
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Very interested in Modo and I have just downloaded the Demo... d...@upbeatunique.com On 3/9/2014 1:57 PM, Christoph Muetze wrote: ...looking forward to spending some time with Modo... c...@glarestudios.de On 08/03/14 23:36, Eugen Sares wrote: Looking into it as well now... m...@eugensares.at mailto:m...@eugensares.at -- Dan Pejril Upbeat Unique Entertainment www.UpbeatUnique.com
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
Thank you Tim. I´d be great to hear from anyone who´s been doing Modo in-the-depths for all kinds of stuff like: animation (rigging), modeling, rendering. I was checking out the help documents and they have a really mind-foward mentality regarding modeling and pass bulding. Looking foward to that webinar. Modo´s interface It´s friendly, clean, and once you take a look at the general mindset, it becomes kinda intuitive. (at least from what´s seen in the videos). Cheers. David Rivera 3D Compositor/Animator LinkedIN Behance VFX Reel On Sunday, March 9, 2014 12:51 PM, Christoph Muetze c...@glarestudios.de wrote: ...looking forward to spending some time with Modo... c...@glarestudios.de On 08/03/14 23:36, Eugen Sares wrote: Looking into it as well now... m...@eugensares.at mailto:m...@eugensares.at
Re: There's more to this story
I agree with you message. I'd like to chime in.. I started SI not 3 years ago as an intern. I had to work with two other generalists, one on maya and the other in si. In under 3 months, I learnt from zero SI to enough knowledge to produce double the quota of my Maya partner (year experience in Maya). The factors could depend on the artist, but then again SI is a great animation and render and compositing package, quick to learn and flexible right out of the box. Learning more about Maya, I do believe Maya is a great product. Don't get me wrong, but reading more on this list is starting to make me doubt the pipeline workflow, with future issues that could set us back and keep us at similar costs and incapability with our competition in this growing market here in Colombia. Due to our nature of being an aspiring VFX and animation industry for the Latin population (a huge market) here from Colombia, South America; the alternative softwre, for cost sake and functionality, is Blender. This littel rebel of an idea promotes innovation and flexibility. People are working on Ice like nodal flexibility and incorporation, it has sculpting like mudbox, compositing nodes as powerful as SI's and as capable as Nukes, video editing (in a 3D package?!), and tools that come standard to Maya, Max, and SI. Yes, it's not there yet, but it's future is by the users for the users. It's open, and developing fast. Each release has hundreds, yes hundreds, of bug fixes and cool new features. Not to mention it runs a gpu+cpu hybrid render engine already included from the get go. And it has the flexibility for developers to grow it, an open SDK. This is very attractive here. And free, and hopefully always free. Being in South America, our production budget is not capable of what Autodesk offers at most times, especially at startup; and I have to say that here, piracy is prevalent in this industry for nearly all of this continent. Not till the emerging studios and talent become successful can they afford to purchase legal seats from Autodesk. As a startup our product turnover and profits are small, every peso counts. Spending thousands of dollars that squashes our currency on what Autodesk or any other software package is offereing sometimes is not viable if we wish to grow or re-invest in more staff and better products; as we can only, more often than not, only cover costs with Autodesk current marketting model and their most popular toolset and expensive pipeline. This situation brings most of Colombia and universities here to start working with Blender. It is a reality that open source software is competition to anything Autodesk offers; and even if it wasn't, it would be pirated due to the economy of the industry here. Yes, Autodesk has the prestige here, yes those who are successful will buy what they offer.. But it's losing traction; even as corruption is challenged and more and more studios require legal software to be granted a sale. But being new studios in a growing industry, it simply can't afford Autodesk with the industries current low turnover in Latin America (for lack of cred), especially for a difficult 3D pipeline with costly maintenence, need for development, plugins, difficult non-destructive/render pipeline workflow, etc; that is not what is needed in a competitive pace within the idustry, one that SI could offer. I had plans to grow my studio here in Colombia and by now we have produced double the quantity with competing if not superior quality with teams the fraction the size of any other studio in this country (which run mostly Max or Maya). This could be thanks to SI. This year we are landing a television series, and we have done all our preproduction in an older version of SI. We hoped to upgrade to the newest and latest, as our pipeline depended on what SI could offer - workflow, functionality, trustworthiness. We were planning to invest a lot in Autodesk, but now our alternatives are to finish our production with our antiquated software, and we can only hope we can purchase SI in the upcoming months or later this year when the contract funds transfer, and carry on till we adopt a viable alternative - which would be Blender or anything else that will help us grow faster than our competition , either with costs or flexibility and future. If we had the opportunity to invest in Softimage later on this year without any previous subscription, we would, and be ahead of our competition many years to come. I'm not saying blender is or ever will be competition, nor am I saying that South America is a lost market - no. I am saying the marketting strategy for Autodesk software and any other 3D software should change to accomodate these needs in growing industries, with thousands of potential new users and content for the worlds second largest mother tongue language, Spanish. I hope Blender will not be bought up, I hope it stays open.
Re: The truth about Autodesk and Softimage. Did Autodesk try?
Yep.. Bait and switch But I think its also important to not be too quick to judge. In this (really bad) system, the pressure to perform (purely financially) is enormous, and leads to all sorts of .. uhm.. behavioral characteristics.. On 03/09/14 13:41, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Yes Jason. Indeed it is a streaming of accusations. That I cantdeny. Autodesk told us they tried. But Imho it was a smoke curtain all the time. It is still a mystery why they kill Softimage. They say it is to focuse in the future and not distract valuable resources from the future developments they are experimenting. I don't completley buy that either. Ok something better is coming... Start first convincing your customers that you are working in something better. Then when it finally arrives start doing presentations. If it is really better we will all start going for it. But they are dragging us by force to Max or Maya. A light of reason was finally depicted at Autodesk by changing their Softimage super burial and you will never ever find the tombstonebafter 2016, to a more coma state where we can stay with him for as long as we want. But just when Softimage is gainning momentum and is coming back at a faster pace... Bamm! A bullet straight to the head. Maybe I work to much in movies or advertising. But this looks like several stories I had watch before. And I am pointing at Autodesk that maybe they had a dream that they tried. But the truth to my eyes says the opposite. El domingo, 9 de marzo de 2014, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com escribi: Hi Emilio, I think your article reveals a number of difficult truths. But indeed difficult they are.. meaning, the openness of whom ever it may concern, is something that can be very sensitive/delicate, and that openness is crucial for any points to actually come across. I myself admit having been somewhat guilty of "overdoing-it", recalling an "AutoBorg" statement (before the reversal) While I don't think your article was necessarily disrespectfull, but reading through it, it definitely feels like stream of accusations at times, and if I were in the shoes of a receiver of that article, I would be compelled to just deny everything, or having to filter-out few bits that can be taken, or just dismiss the whole thing at the first paragraph. Diplomacy can indeed be quite touchy. Whithout at-all comparing your peice to a purely resentful message, I will quote what I wrote on Si Community to McAxe who made an image of electrodes zapping Autodesk.. FXDude Post subject:Re: The silent protest Posted:08 Mar 2014, 02:59 Joined:19 Jun 2012, 20:59 Posts:52 Hi McAxe, sorry I don't want to ruin your efforts, but I swear that hatefulness in of itself (or portrail of such), although it can be like an unthought reflex and may vent some inner-pressure, it can only ultimately be counter-productive. Meaning that anger can be like "tamed" and "channeled" to make criticism (or critical artwork) be; - Constructive allowing anyone concerned to reflect, consider remain open to criticism (when it's respectful) - as opposed to Destructive, *reducing credibility*, making anyone concerned become resentful, build-up defenses, while either taking offense or (then legitimately) disregarding the criticism in question (thus becoming in vain), with a heightened tendency to then close-up when it comes other criticism in general on a given issue, dismissing them as just.. well .. hateful. Also while inciting more similar behavior. Case in point, as you may or may not know, the decision to make SI expire by 2016 has been lifted !(in a frozen development state) and that is most-probably not from any "F#$ Autodesk" remarks. ; ) And there is still room to perhaps open-up the SDK (crossing fingers) Cheers : ) Last edited byFXDudeon 08 Mar 2014, 03:21, edited 1 time in total. Cheers :) -- --- Emilio Hernndez VFX 3D animation.
Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users
would it be silly to add that those passes everyone is raving about were there from XSI v1.0 way back in 2000, and have remained mostly untouched ever since? those who say: oh but software X (or M) has passes too? often think of AOVs which are XSI’s render channels. So if you will, XSI’s passes/channels system is multidimensional . From: Greg Punchatz Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2014 11:02 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users Not even close that's all pre canned stuff from what I have seen... nothing like the power of passes in xsi.. I can override ANYTHING in soft... a material to an objects position in space.. I have had overides that change characters into entire new ones with out referring to a single new piece of geo... I simply have the pass drive shapes and map choices...the list goes on.. and on and on wlEmoticon-smile[1].png
Re: Area lights shadows look like steps
I'm not sure which passes(channels) you rendering except this one, but I think you can get your shadow pass from your beauty's pass lighting channel, if you render separate pass with lighting only but without shadows and an albedo pass. 2014-03-09 13:09 GMT+02:00 David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr: Hello Jason, Thanks for the help. The steeping is well visible in my render pass' camera, not only in the threshold but on large parts of the roundness of objects. So as I use this shadow pass as an alpha in composting, it's annoying. But your post made me think of other options to tweak: - In Geometry approximation Poly mesh I increased the subdiv level from 2 to 3 and got smaller steps. - In Geometry approximation Poly mesh I increased the discontinuity angle from 60 to 120 and got more softness. - In the light settings soft light raytraced soft shadows I set it to 3 and 15 and got a bit more softness, but it seriously increased rendering time. What bugs me is that the steps are still here. Smaller and softer but still here. By the way, I didn't find the option to turn off cast shadows on visible faces, could you help me on that? Thanks, David On 2014-03-08 20:38, Jason S wrote: That stepping always occurs, (revealing object polygons without smoothing) happenning at the lit/shaded threshold of objects. But normally isn't visible, as it happens slightly beyond the maximum reach of the light on an object (will show-up in shadow only passes) And should similarly (normally) become invisible once you comp your shadows in, on a pass with that light only. Of course if you comp that on on the final with other light sources you'll see the stepping, in that is the case, you can turn off cast shadows on visible faces and voila!
Re: Rendermap crashing
Mapify seems like a pretty good solution. I just wish it would let you name the sequence - or at least would pull the name from the pass name. I've been breaking them up by creating multiple directories. -Paul ᐧ On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 1:20 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Sorry I didnt see your reply. Mapify normally works pretty well. I don't know why there should be any problem just due for the constant material (the most basic), but you can also try the mray constant, or play around with the ambient settings to get a constant-ish result. Best of Luck On 03/08/14 16:26, Paul Griswold wrote: I'm actually rendermapping a camera projected animation, so I am mapping the texture to the incandescence and then the inverted alpha to scale the transparency. That gives me a baked rendermap that maintains the alpha and lighting from the camera projection. I don't understand why Softimage doesn't have a built-in ability to render animated rendermaps, though. ᐧ On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Hum.. intriging indeed.. so at least now you can put your lambert's ambient at 3.33 to make it constant (if your scene ambient is at default 0.3) On 03/08/14 16:08, Paul Griswold wrote: Looks like switching to Lambert fixed the problem. I don't understand why a constant material would cause a crash, though. ᐧ On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Does it work with a plain phong? if not, would eliminating all other objects do the trick? On 03/08/14 15:48, Paul Griswold wrote: I haven't been able to catch any messages unfortunately. I do wonder if it's because I'm using a constant shader on the object being rendermapped. Previously I'd applied a Lambert. ᐧ On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: Have you checked the last Verbose messages before crashing? I would think it's probably due to a specific object in particular, and/or copies of it if the case being. On 03/08/14 15:31, Paul Griswold wrote: I have a ton of animated rendermapping to do, so I'm using Mapify from Sajjad Amjad. The problem I'm having is a LOT of crashes. I can't seem to find any consistent reason for it. I've been able to get it to render out 24 frames, 42 frames, and then sometimes Softimage will crash after just 2 frames. Is there a more stable way to render out a large number of animated rendermaps? Or is this a Mental Ray / Softimage problem? Thanks, Paul ᐧ
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
interested, but not as much as i'm interested in SI. doekewart...@gmail.com 2014-03-09 18:58 GMT+01:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com: Thank you Tim. I´d be great to hear from anyone who´s been doing Modo in-the-depths for all kinds of stuff like: animation (rigging), modeling, rendering. I was checking out the help documents and they have a really mind-foward mentality regarding modeling and pass bulding. Looking foward to that webinar. Modo´s interface It´s friendly, clean, and once you take a look at the general mindset, it becomes kinda intuitive. (at least from what´s seen in the videos). Cheers. *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 On Sunday, March 9, 2014 12:51 PM, Christoph Muetze c...@glarestudios.de wrote: ...looking forward to spending some time with Modo... c...@glarestudios.de On 08/03/14 23:36, Eugen Sares wrote: Looking into it as well now... m...@eugensares.at mailto:m...@eugensares.at
Re: Rendermap crashing
My thoughts exactly ! :) On 03/09/14 14:48, Paul Griswold wrote: Mapify seems like a pretty good solution. I just wish it would let you name the sequence - or at least would pull the name from the pass name. I've been breaking them up by creating multiple directories. -Paul ᐧ
Forester anyone ?
https://vimeo.com/groups/ice/videos/88416806
Re: Migrate Ice
Thank you Chris, Bifrost does look very promising. I will be interested to see how easily I can transition my pipeline from my ICE workflows to Bifrost. I am a Maya user originally but will miss ICE's simple and effective platform. I have been teaching my new fx artists using ICE because all the information is exposed to them rather then being tucked into sliders or expressions. I look forward to using Bifrost and seeing how this continues to develop. ~Katie Jones On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Chris Vienneau chris.vienn...@autodesk.comwrote: Talking about this very topic and what we could do with this new framework is where we want contributors. The big thing we have tried to deal with this in this new framework is scale. A decent machine is chunking through 30-40 m particles and displaying that in the viewport which is impossible in Maya 2014. A great machine with lots of RAM (64 g) was working with 200 m flip particles. We are literally rendering out the scenes that will make up the new feature videos to show this off and I will probably just leak it here to keep the conversation going. The best starting point for the discussion is this article: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/bifrost-the-return-of-the-naiad-team-with-a-bridge-to-ice/ But for those of that have signed up for a private discussion we will talk much more about what we are doing and what we could do to in the transition time frame so you can compare your options. cv/ From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [ softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Gustavo Eggert Boehs [gustav...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 10:51 AM To: SI mailing list Subject: Re: Migrate Ice I hope it gets as broad a scope as ICE and can be used for other things than flip fluid sims... Although just those great flip fluid sims will attract much attention by itself I bet... ducks -- Katherine Rodtsbrooks krodtsbro...@gmail.com www.katies3d.com 541-513-2849
Re: There's more to this story
Hi Andres. I have read your response. I wholeheartedly agree with every point you've made! Yes, you are right that Softimage is an important asset to Autodesk's portfolio of products in the Media Entertainment suite. I also agree that the company shouldn't take away Softimage as an alternative and let customers decide on what they need for their production pipeline concerns. What I don't understand (which refers back to my message) is: For the emerging 3D printing market, why can't Autodesk devote their time to integrate 3D printing tool features in 3DSMax, Maya and Softimage? I understand that the requirement for 3d printing (like the Shapeways service) is conversion of the 3d model file to OBJ or STL formats. But, why can't Autodesk make 3DSMax, Maya or Softimage be directly compatible or compliant to 3D printing if Autodesk is wanting to be heavily involved in the current state of 3D printing? Yeah, I've been looking into Blender for the past 2 years (I've kept in touch -reading news of added features and improvements to the program). I really think that Blender can serve as a formidable alternative to the existing 3D programs in the market. Blender has had every opportunity to not flourish in the CG landscape. But, the Blender community is persistent. Blender has had a consistency of new features being added and improvements in the User Interface. Blender users have in the past express concern that a corporation would buyout Blender. Before 2002, Blender was freeware but not Open Source. Venture Capitalists(VCs) invested into Blender so that Blender would be used for creating animations and games (addition of the Blender Game Engine). Blender came close to being halted when it wasn't profitable. The VCs wanted their investment back - they wanted roughly between 100,000 to 150,000 Euros in exchange for Blender's release. Ton Roosendaal (creator of Blender) was able to do an early crowdfunding event to buy back Blender. In the end, Ton got close to around 450,000 Euros (I think). He was able to establish the Blender Foundation and the Blender Institute. Blender was able to go Open Source. Blender users do not want any similar experiences like what has happened to Softimage now. Because Blender has been and is slowly flourishing, I've been making time to read and watch Blender learning materials (books, YouTube, etc.). Plus, there are tools in Blender that will help with exporting models to 3D printing services. Michael L. Sent from my iPhone On 2014-03-09, at 3:03 PM, Andres Stephens drais...@outlook.com wrote: I agree with you message. I'd like to chime in.. I started SI not 3 years ago as an intern. I had to work with two other generalists, one on maya and the other in si. In under 3 months, I learnt from zero SI to enough knowledge to produce double the quota of my Maya partner (year experience in Maya). The factors could depend on the artist, but then again SI is a great animation and render and compositing package, quick to learn and flexible right out of the box. Learning more about Maya, I do believe Maya is a great product. Don't get me wrong, but reading more on this list is starting to make me doubt the pipeline workflow, with future issues that could set us back and keep us at similar costs and incapability with our competition in this growing market here in Colombia. Due to our nature of being an aspiring VFX and animation industry for the Latin population (a huge market) here from Colombia, South America; the alternative softwre, for cost sake and functionality, is Blender. This littel rebel of an idea promotes innovation and flexibility. People are working on Ice like nodal flexibility and incorporation, it has sculpting like mudbox, compositing nodes as powerful as SI's and as capable as Nukes, video editing (in a 3D package?!), and tools that come standard to Maya, Max, and SI. Yes, it's not there yet, but it's future is by the users for the users. It's open, and developing fast. Each release has hundreds, yes hundreds, of bug fixes and cool new features. Not to mention it runs a gpu+cpu hybrid render engine already included from the get go. And it has the flexibility for developers to grow it, an open SDK. This is very attractive here. And free, and hopefully always free. Being in South America, our production budget is not capable of what Autodesk offers at most times, especially at startup; and I have to say that here, piracy is prevalent in this industry for nearly all of this continent. Not till the emerging studios and talent become successful can they afford to purchase legal seats from Autodesk. As a startup our product turnover and profits are small, every peso counts. Spending thousands of dollars that squashes our currency on what Autodesk or any other software package is offereing sometimes is not viable if we wish to grow or re-invest in more
Whats New in Maya 2015
Hi Maurice Any idea when the Maya / Maya LT version of the whats new pdf will emerge. This is important for those of us needing to make transition decisions sooner rather then later. Kind regards Angus table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 style=width:100%; tr td align=left style=text-align:justify;font face=arial,sans-serif size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. /span/font/td /tr /table
Re: The one question I have not seen asked: Autodesk, what's your price?
You should contact Autodesk directly if you are serious about it. Which I doubt or you wouldn't be asking here. I'm not sure what are the Autodesk policy for this kind of business discussions but obviously asking in a public mailing list is just a waste of bandwidth and time. Martin On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 4:10 AM, Chris Covelli ch...@polygonpusherinc.comwrote: Well, I doubt anyone here is seriously asking for an AD executive to come on this list and start haggling with us over very large sums of money on a public forum, thats absurd. But Im sure some people ( who may not be overly business savvy ) would want to know where to begin inquiring about it. Chris Covelli http://www.polygonpusherinc.com/ http://exocortex.com/products/species TurboSquid Modelshttp://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/Polygon-Pusher?referral=Polygon-Pusher On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: I agree that it should/could not happen publicly. On 03/09/14 0:57, Maurice Patel wrote: @Chris. Autodesk cannot and will not answer such questions publicly. And if you are asking this you really have not researched the matter, which is why I doubt it is anything other than maybe wishful thinking. It is one thing to engage in wishful thinking with the community just don't expect anyone from Autodesk to engage in the discussion. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Chris Covelli Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 12:43 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Re: The one question I have not seen asked: Autodesk, what's your price? @Maurice, I cant speak to Emilio or Daniel's seriousness about this question,( although I wouldn't doubt their sincerity right out of the gate either ), but how would someone inquire about this? Chris Covelli http://www.polygonpusherinc.com/ http://exocortex.com/products/species TurboSquid Modelshttp://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/Polygon- Pusher?referral=Polygon-Pusher
Re: Rendermap crashing
I'm sure there are folks who are far more qualified and experienced with rendermapping who'd have opinions on that. I honestly have never had a need for it until the project I'm on now. For me, I'm rendermapping multiple camera projections on the same object in multiple passes. Then I'm taking that output into Eyeon Fusion's 3D environment and re-applying them. Since I'm basically creating passes, I can use Fusion's tools to modify the rendermaps quickly and then output a merged UV sequence. So for this situation, I'm perfectly happy just being able to have a custom name. Anything else is a bonus. The one thing I would request is - rather than numbering 1, 2, 3, 4, using 0001, 0002, etc. Thanks!! Paul ᐧ On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Sajjad Amjad sajjad.am...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Paul, As you can probably tell, Mapify was written for a specific need. According to the help. After the path, I only append the obj.FullName. So if the path is C:\temp and you have a model Foo with a Bar inside it. The render map will be output to: C:\temp\Foo.bar\renderMap.1.ext Would you prefer it to be something like any of the following: 1. C:\temp\Foo.bar\custom.1.ext ? 2. C:\temp\pass\Foo.Bar\custom.1.ext 3. C:\temp\Foo.Bar\pass\custom.1.ext 4. C:\temp\Foo\Bar\pass\pass_custom.1.ext You hopefully get where I'm going with this. I'm willing to make some quick and dirty changes. Construct a path and i'll see if it qualifies as a quick and dirty change :-) Based on the experience I've gained in the last 5-6 years, it should be rewritten. Sajjad On 9 March 2014 18:52, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: My thoughts exactly ! :) On 03/09/14 14:48, Paul Griswold wrote: Mapify seems like a pretty good solution. I just wish it would let you name the sequence - or at least would pull the name from the pass name. I've been breaking them up by creating multiple directories. -Paul ᐧ
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
I need to find our next software for office. We all are already Maya professionals, but I like to try Modo. danielki...@gmail.com
Re: The one question I have not seen asked: Autodesk, what's your price?
Yes, and without speculating on the likelihood, it at least demonstrated the *openness to the idea*, which in itself can should absolutely be passed around. On 03/09/14 15:39, Martin Yara wrote: You should contact Autodesk directly if you are serious about it. Which I doubt or you wouldn't be asking here. I'm not sure what are the Autodesk policy for this kind of business discussions but obviously asking in a public mailing list is just a waste of bandwidth and time. Martin
Re: Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here
I am transitioning to it from Softimage. On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Daniel Kim danielki...@gmail.com wrote: I need to find our next software for office. We all are already Maya professionals, but I like to try Modo. danielki...@gmail.com -- Perry Harovas 203-448-7206 Animation and Visual Effects http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/ -24 years experience -Co-Author of Mastering Mayahttp://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Maya-Complete-Perry-Harovas/dp/0782125212 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/
