Re: let me fan the flames....
I may be wrong there… time will tell… let's talk in 4 years. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 6 Mar 2014, at 01:02, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago. Sent from my iPhone On Mar 6, 2014, at 0:44, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll: http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r :p On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet?
RE: let me fan the flames.
Mudbox has lot of advantages against ZBrush, like true texture support, PTex support, etc. I'm saying that, though I can't stand Mudbox, I'm pretty sure it'll survive even Max. This is AD only tool in that segment. Motionbuilder will be incorporated into Maya. Many US game developers are using now Maya, even UK developers are migrating to Maya as well, Maya receives almost all attention (fuck off Autodesk by the way), and it's quite obvious that Maya will be the only 3D program in few years. I can imagine that they will drop max too for a favour of a new 3D application, that will be cloud based, and you will pay a monthly rate for the modules you are using, sculpting, animation and so on From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 2:18 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: let me fan the flames. I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being obviously pushed further and further into design lands leaving the entertainment field clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in the next year or two, or even three. I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones andy.jo...@gmail.commailto:andy.jo...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and replace it with one new guy? On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.commailto:alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: let me fan the flames.
Mudbox is selling for crap, and it has -one- advantage over ZBrush in its texture support (ZBrush just doesn't cut it with the current point limits coupled with its per-pixol approach and obscure layer system), but that's so vastly outclassed by Mari now that in the higher end it's disappearing even for that. We'll see anyway, but personally I doubt it'll see another Christmas. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Mudbox has lot of advantages against ZBrush, like true texture support, PTex support, etc. I'm saying that, though I can't stand Mudbox, I'm pretty sure it'll survive even Max. This is AD only tool in that segment. Motionbuilder will be incorporated into Maya. Many US game developers are using now Maya, even UK developers are migrating to Maya as well, Maya receives almost all attention (fuck off Autodesk by the way), and it's quite obvious that Maya will be the only 3D program in few years. I can imagine that they will drop max too for a favour of a new 3D application, that will be cloud based, and you will pay a monthly rate for the modules you are using, sculpting, animation and so on *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Raffaele Fragapane *Sent:* Thursday, March 06, 2014 2:18 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: let me fan the flames. I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being obviously pushed further and further into design lands leaving the entertainment field clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in the next year or two, or even three. I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones andy.jo...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and replace it with one new guy? On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: let me fan the flames....
3dMax is next. Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015
Re: let me fan the flames....
I have already seen a post that says Max will no longer get development. http://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/comments/z8o09/autodesk_is_no_longer_going_to_develop_3dsmax_and/ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: 3dMax is next. Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015 -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: let me fan the flames....
The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? Sent from my iPhone On 5 Mar 2014, at 17:12, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: 3dMax is next. Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015
Re: let me fan the flames....
i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet?
Re: let me fan the flames....
On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: autodesk might have to consider extra security... Well if they ever travel to Montreal they'll need to hire Blackwater ops and drive around in armored vehicles like it's Fallujah.
Re: let me fan the flames....
I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll: http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r :p On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet?
Re: let me fan the flames....
The market place will force AD to consolidate it's resources on one package, or significantly modify existing apps, or it fails regardless of user base. The competition is only getting stiffer and it can't hold onto multiple packages in their current state. That's my thought anyway. On 3/5/2014 1:10 PM, Steven Caron wrote: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- *Rares Halmagean ___ *visual development and 3d character content creation. *rarebrush.com* http://rarebrush.com/
Re: let me fan the flames....
I sort of agree about the Max userbase, but they will lose Max market share at an ever increasing rate due to all the rumors having dramatically more credibility now. If you're a Max user, would you hedge your bets on them not killing it, or would you learn something else? And if you're a company and everyone seems to be moving away from Max, would you invest in it? They would have to make a really grand gesture to establish faith that it's moving forward, and having watched the grand gesture for Maya, I'm not sure they're capable of it being grand enough. Also, a lot of Max's staying power has been due to FX. With an influx of Houdini talent, and lost trust form 3rd party devs as well, it'll be an uphill battle keeping their position in FX in place. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote: The market place will force AD to consolidate it's resources on one package, or significantly modify existing apps, or it fails regardless of user base. The competition is only getting stiffer and it can't hold onto multiple packages in their current state. That's my thought anyway. On 3/5/2014 1:10 PM, Steven Caron wrote: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- *Rares Halmagean ___ *visual development and 3d character content creation. *rarebrush.com* http://rarebrush.com/
Re: let me fan the flames....
Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','jordiba...@gmail.com'); wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
Re: let me fan the flames....
aren't they based in montreal? ;P On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Simon van de Lagemaat si...@theembassyvfx.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: autodesk might have to consider extra security... Well if they ever travel to Montreal they'll need to hire Blackwater ops and drive around in armored vehicles like it's Fallujah.
Re: let me fan the flames....
More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
Re: let me fan the flames....
If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
Re: let me fan the flames....
Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder... it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it... it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax... well... the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it... With regards with the users... they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
Re: let me fan the flames....
Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
Re: let me fan the flames....
People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next.
Re: let me fan the flames....
I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows. Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from going after Microsoft. I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc. ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com
Re: let me fan the flames....
yes, although that that was a rather different situation, like you said windows came/comes bundled with IE, had microsoft been selling it/giving it away as an entirely separate product users would have had more of a chance of picking alternative browsers, and had that been the case I doubt the government had gone after them at all. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows. Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from going after Microsoft. I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc. ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares
Re: let me fan the flames....
I think it'd be pretty hard to even determine the market size in first place. Film? Probably so close to totality it wouldn't be funny, but then Nuke for comp in the same market, ZBrush for sculpting, soon enough Mari for texturing, until not long ago PRMan for rendering (now a well challenged position) and so on. So a case could be made that it's simply a market that routinely coalesces around dominant solutions. Games? Well, you might get some traction there, but then nobody ever challenged them. Design? Far from a monopoly there. and so on. MS back then got targeted because they were effectively exploiting a position of de-facto monopoly (home and home office OS) in a market to become dominant in another (internet accessibility). Their unfair advantage on the OS front would have allowed them to, at an immediate loss but a long term gain, to corner another market by wiping away competitors who had no such advantage but had superior products. That's the kind of scenario antitrust covers to a T. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows. Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from going after Microsoft. I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc. ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop...
Re: let me fan the flames....
There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed Of course what can legal often bears very little, to sometimes NO relation to what can be considered ethical On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com mailto:emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com mailto:emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com
Re: let me fan the flames....
Ethical simply doesn't enter the picture when you interface with a publicly traded corp. Whether it's sad or not is a different discussion, but never expect ethical from any profit driven organization. This is not a criticism levelled to any company, it's just an important thing to keep in mind when dealing with one that, ultimately, targets investor benefits as their main objective. ZBrush or 3DCoat are ultimately driven by the vision and feelings of some key people, Fabric to a large extent can be personable, SideFX often is, Some products inside the Foundry are successful and insular enough to benefit from the good will of some key people. Autodesk simply doesn't work to those parameters, it's not configured to the moment any given decision can be overridden by a fluctuation in the stock market that's completely unrelated to the division serving you. The (some) people inside have feelings and ethics, and some rare times they might surface in a company policy, software feature or PR move, but the general direction of the company itself isn't determined by those anomalies. You can expect some moral standards and genuinely humane feelings reflected in those products with teams insular and successful enough in some of those companies, and you definitely can in the more mompop style companies, but don't expect a publicly traded company to be successfully affected, provoked, manipulated or coerced into action or inaction by any interaction shaped by feelings like if you were dealing with another person. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed Of course what can legal often bears very little, to sometimes NO relation to what can be considered ethical On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09
Re: let me fan the flames....
And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to key executive compensationhttp://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=ADSK in 2013 That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from ME is only 7% of total income It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget. Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going on in corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of the classes, in the US. The income gaphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_Statesis growing every day. US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains flat. It is all driven by greed. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/ -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: let me fan the flames....
BTW, the Stock return of AD was 42.35% in 2013 over 2012, so the stockholders made their money. It's all about the stockholders. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.netwrote: And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to key executive compensationhttp://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=ADSK in 2013 That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from ME is only 7% of total income It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget. Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going on in corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of the classes, in the US. The income gaphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_Statesis growing every day. US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains flat. It is all driven by greed. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake. Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. We will continue to support and develop... --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version was truly annoying. 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are receiving.. (irony) arhghh Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: More reasons to stay with softimage El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com escribió: Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it up with that in mind. Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com escreveu: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.comwrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet? -- Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/ -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956 %28954%29%20552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: let me fan the flames....
Very well put.. like trying to reason with a robot locked on it's crush/dominate mode program preset by whatever means (to an end) necessary. (necessarily mean) On 03/05/14 17:51, Raffaele Fragapane wrote: Ethical simply doesn't enter the picture when you interface with a publicly traded corp. Whether it's sad or not is a different discussion, but never expect ethical from any profit driven organization. This is not a criticism levelled to any company, it's just an important thing to keep in mind when dealing with one that, ultimately, targets investor benefits as their main objective. ZBrush or 3DCoat are ultimately driven by the vision and feelings of some key people, Fabric to a large extent can be personable, SideFX often is, Some products inside the Foundry are successful and insular enough to benefit from the good will of some key people. Autodesk simply doesn't work to those parameters, it's not configured to the moment any given decision can be overridden by a fluctuation in the stock market that's completely unrelated to the division serving you. The (some) people inside have feelings and ethics, and some rare times they might surface in a company policy, software feature or PR move, but the general direction of the company itself isn't determined by those anomalies. You can expect some moral standards and genuinely humane feelings reflected in those products with teams insular and successful enough in some of those companies, and you definitely can in the more mompop style companies, but don't expect a publicly traded company to be successfully affected, provoked, manipulated or coerced into action or inaction by any interaction shaped by feelings like if you were dealing with another person. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com mailto:jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed Of course what can legal often bears very little, to sometimes NO relation to what can be considered ethical On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote: People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far. Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner. If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited. AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through ME, almost not at all compared to any other tech industry. Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME
Re: let me fan the flames....
You are hitting a nerve there!WARNING - Totally OT:It's a fact that money does never "work", it's always people who do. If people pour their money onto the stock exchange to "make" more money,somebody will have to actually do real work to produce that profit (produce some goods that did not exist before, like knitting a pullover, writing software, or making nice pictures with Softimage).The stock exchange is nothing but a huge money turning machine that reduces the amount of freely available money on the side of the actual productive part of society, and those who already have enough money. Nothing has ever threatened social peace more than stock exchanges are currently doing. The good news is it will all regulate itself one way or the other. One way of regulation could be to re-establish control over stock markets and properly compensate people who do real work. (No company can have 70 billion of cash reserves and pretend to pay their workers adequately, talking of Apple). The other one is waiting for it's collapse and rebuilding society from it's ashes after the dust has settled. I'd rather go for the former, since the latter cost millions of lifes last time (Black Friday 1929, and resulting economic and social breakdown, ending in WW2).The ugly part is that you can't escape and opt out, no matter on what side of the system you operate on. Even if you don't participate in stock trading you are still affected by it through higher taxes (money your government has to spend on saving banks from going bankrupt because they have badly speculated with the money you have already given them, deliberately or not), reduced quality of living due to environmental pollution (kepping environments clean requires research and changes in production and consumption behaviors, which costs money that is not there), reduction of social services due to lack of money, and lower payment (the money that shareholders are getting is that part of your salery that you never get) - the days where a man could sustain a family of four with a single job are practically over, along with all the effects it has on families where both parents need to work full time, sometimes even in multiple jobs, just to barely make it, with children suffering the most from it.Stock exchanges need to be decoupled from real world econimics. Let the rich play with their own money, not mine for "§%$ sake.Nobody can make money in trading stocks and pretend to do it in good faith, not even for his children, which have to grow up inthe society we are all part of, utimately.With all the venting going on in here it felt like a good opportunity to get this off my chest too :-)And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to "key executive compensation" in 2013That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from ME is only 7% of total income It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget.Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going onin corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of the classes, in the US. The income gap is growing every day.US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains flat. It is all driven by greed.On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision. If ME account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant. But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc. If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line. This was all for show IMHO. Realistically, they could cancel all of their ME products if they're 7% of the revenue. They own enough patents intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product. Again Joe Alter comes to mind. Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year? Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims. Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point. -Paul ᐧ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.Motion Builder also has not major improvements. So we know how all will end. "We will continue to support and develop..." ---Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac version
Re: let me fan the flames....
I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago. Sent from my iPhone On Mar 6, 2014, at 0:44, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll: http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r :p On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security... On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The writing is on the wall. This is my take. 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market. 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya. 3 - 3DMax goes next. Anyone want to bet?
Re: let me fan the flames....
I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being obviously pushed further and further into design lands leaving the entertainment field clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in the next year or two, or even three. I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though. On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones andy.jo...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and replace it with one new guy? On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.comwrote: I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: let me fan the flames....
Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and replace it with one new guy? On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.comwrote: I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.
