Well put Peter. My company actually pays Autodesk a decent amount of money to be part of ADN (Autodesk Developer Network) so that we can use a handful of licenses of the various DCC tools for development purposes. With that, we get access to support but the process of working through an issue from the reporting stage to actually getting usable information is so slow and frustrating. You never interact directly with the devs. Instead you typically play broken telephone via support personnel that rarely understand the problem resulting in several back and forth emails with typical turnaround times of more than 24 hours for every single email. There are exceptions, I've been pleasantly surprised by the level of service from a few individuals on the support team, but more often than not, interacting with support leaves me swearing at my monitor. For the issue I mentioned in my original message, once I had a working solution, I ended up throwing my hands in the air - f it why am I going to beg AD for the privilege to helping them improve their SDK? It's sad because I know for a fact there are a ton of great people working at AD (I used to work at Alias prior to the acquisition) so the problem is more bureaucratic red tape than anything else.
When it comes down to it we need our ADN subscription. Without it, we'd have to purchase licenses for Soft, Maya, Max, etc... for each of our developers which simply wouldn't be possible for us at this stage. And while the support is way more frustrating and inefficient than it needs to be (IMO), it's saved us on a few occasions. Thankfully, this list does a good job of filling in the gap for me. On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 2:53 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > that’s a shame. > I was going to reply to your original mail, saying something like: > that’s all very interesting, but is there no better channel to get into > contact with softimage developers than this mailing list? > > 3rd party developers should have a prime communication line to the target > software’s dev team – even if it’s ‘just’ a free forum with active > participation by people from the dev team. > Regardless of their size or investment in licenses. > > 3rd party developers invest their time, effort and knowledge, often > without good prospects of return, at least not in line with that > investment, especially with a small userbase like for softimage. > In doing so, they are strengthening the target software, overcoming some > of its main weaknesses. Some that are still around after a decade - likely > never to be adressed by the target software. > When that target app is becoming less compelling to keep investing in by > itself (see: the price increases thread that going on right now) - 3rd > party tools might well save it’s grace, and keep it alive way beyond it’s > expiration date. > Should be obvious in the case of 3dsmax and FumeFX / Krakatoa / Vray for > example - where would max be without them? > > And it’s not like there is nothing left to whish for in Softimage. > Frankly this is precisely what’s going on at all Softimage based studios I > am in contact with – each and every one of them considering ending > Softimage use. The cost doesn’t seem inline with the improvements. The > alternatives under consideration are being favored based on 3rd party tools. > If it wasn’t for binary alchemy / mootzoid / exocortex / solid angle and > others, in no particular order – that decision would have been made a while > ago. > > I am convinced that limited third party offering is one of the main > reasons why Softimage is the underdog software – together with unfavorable > pricing/policies/marketing. Too bad, because it deserves better. > > > *From:* Nicolas Burtnyk <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, June 18, 2012 10:03 PM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: Heads up to plugin developers regarding CRef > > Thanks Kamen - To compound my frustration, Autodesk is being very closed > about discussing this issue with me. > I wanted a simple conversation with the Soft dev guys to explain why this > is a problem and suggest some solutions. Unfortunately I'm not a > "Enterprise Priority" customer (lol) so I have to go through the > excruciating process of speaking via a support portal and waiting days for > replies. > > > On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Stephan Woermann < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> There is a DirtyList attribute in the renderes context, maybe that helps >> a little... >> >> Stephan >> > >
