+1 for Jeff and Eric. Softimage is, of the 3 AD 3D products, by far the best tool for a small or medium shop. Max seems to be good for solo performers or the places that take the time to really engineer a pipeline for it. Maya, as many here have noted, is great in a large-scale industrial pipelined environment.
For the users, the UI and workflow of Soft is IMHO far superior, but let's face it, there are a lot of quirks there as well, as in any large DCC app. Andy Jones once noted that Softimage is the closest thing there is to a "pipeline in a box," and it's a shame that AD doesn't play up that strength. It would allow both marketing and development to focus on differentiating Softimage from Max and Maya without fear of cannibalizing their user bases. As a public company, AD is no doubt wary of making "forward-looking statements," so I'm sure that some people there and on this list know more than they can share with us. The optimistic side of me (yes, there is one!) takes some comfort in one possible interpretation of recent movements within AD: the shuffling around of dev staff is exactly what one would expect if AD were doing what we all have wished for a long time. It's plausible that they are finally taking the plunge to build a new best-of-breed 3D environment (cloud-based or not -- that's really irrelevant and becoming more so each day). They have 3 apps, and regardless of our opinions of which is "better," each has developed a brand image. Max's is entry-level, light-duty, and ubiquitous. Maya's is industrial-strength, industry-standard, pro-grade. Softimage's has evolved, like it or not, to be a secret weapon, high-performance, insider's favorite. Given those three, and the fact that no one would want AD to start selling a *fourth* complete-solution 3D package under a new brand, which would you pick as the brand you will use for a next-gen product? It's obviously Maya. So I hope that putting Soft in Cory's basket, and adding the Soft dev team to Maya's means that we can look forward to a new set of tools with Maya's market force and Soft's design & workflow brought together. Hopefully without Mental Ray, unless they can significantly change how it's (not) integrated or supported properly in any product... etm
