It's my understanding that 95% of 3D users in the movie industry uses Maya + Renderman. If this is indeed true, then it's logical for AD to put energy there instead of trying to get those users to use XSI, thus also forcing a change in pipelines.
From: Peter Agg [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: September-10-12 4:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. It's not like companies were particularly forced into Nuke though (hell, some places are still to finish the transition!), people went because it was better and people learnt it because it was better. Whether Soft is as far ahead of Maya/Max as Nuke was to Shake is a bit more debatable. Still, the winds seem to be blowing in the direction of more diverse, specialist software so Soft could well find it's place in that yet. On 10 September 2012 21:30, Craig Tozzi <[email protected]> wrote: Of course that isn't going to happen, unless a studio/individual is forced to. If you had a lot of seats of Shake some years back, it's likely you've moved onto Nuke etc. by now. Softimage really feels that it's on the periphery of AD's marketing radar - that graphic literally (in the truest sense of the word) lays that out for all to see. Somehow a full featured program has been reduced to a particle generation system in the eyes of those who don't know any better. New studios and students have to make a choice at some point into what they're going to center a pipeline/skills/talent around. Honestly, considering this - what decision would you make? So you buy a suite...are you willing to build in and be responsible for a budget, pipeline and artists for three separate applications over a series of years? How deep are your pockets? This is a very real concern. If there's no marketing to consider Soft as a standalone app, no sane startup or student would consider specializing in the product. Likewise, why would any existing studio consider integrating the app, as - over time - less and less resources are put to it, and less artists truly know the app? It makes no sense. Considering this, Softimage either gets sold or it dies on the vine. I'll put a crisp $2. bill on a 5 year lifespan as an existing product. I hope AD proves me wrong. On Sep 10, 2012, at 12:55 PM, Graham Bell <[email protected]> wrote: "I don't want Softimage to be a good companion to Maya&3dsmax, I want Softimage to kick their ass and make all users leave their software and use Softimage instead!!" This is a perfectly valid point, however playing a neutral card for a moment and to just throw something out there....how do we do that? There are plenty of Maya/Max based studios out there, skilled up, decent pipeline with some tech & tools, and producing very good and capable work for years, how would you get them to then rip all that up and go with Softimage? I'm not sure it's that easy, expanding the capability of a pipeline by adding another solution/software is one thing, but a complete replacement/retool of your core 3D app? That's a whole bigger thing altogether. G
