Originally known as 'Softimage Digital Studio' and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage's attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS.
After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid's horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. As for Sumatra.....the intention was to share the same core as DS and also integrate 'Twister' (special interactive version of mental ray). However it was later discovered that was not possible if the products were to all exist and be competitive. So, Sumatra was split off onto its own core and somewhat rushed because it was 1998 and very late to market, and chasing the then newly released Maya 1.0. That is partly why some features are not as well integrated as others. For example, why animation edits do not log in the script editor. The other stuff you'll have to ask one of the former developers. Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 6:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! Hmmm but Softimage DS came out when it was already Microsoft as I remember. Eddie was the comp from Softimage and Toonz for 2D cell animation at the moment Microsoft acquired it. Unless of course DS was in development which I don't know, at the moment Microsoft bought it. As many of you I never felt in home with AD as I felt in those good old days. Even with Avid that was trying to do: I don't know what... I stopped paying my suscription since 2013. I was waiting to see the new incredible team that it was said to bring new blood to Softimage. But all I can see is AD adding more corpse parts to the Frankenstein that is Maya. And new Softimage wizkids that as far as I read here, don't know how to properly increment a version number with no backward compatibility. Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. Better tools have been developed by the SI Community by far. Just wondering... If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... $10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon... 2013/7/30 Matt Lind <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Let's review the past: In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative. In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft - mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I'm sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you'd be paying for a name.....one which many people mispronounce. Matt From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, "so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most?" Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using >> in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars >> because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying >> Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums.... > > I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied > to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be > built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's > designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need > to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from > scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted > time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with > manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been > about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. > -- -- [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg]
