clap clap clap clap! best words so far by now... the day i'll see a better 3d software than softimage, i'll do the move, meanwhile and after 15 years it gave me all the tools that i need to make my work and have fun while i do it, with the price that i'm almost out of the local market that look for 3d mayans. Hoping to see again in the job boards studios looking for softimage artists... those are my 2 cents.
F. On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Tim Crowson <[email protected]> wrote: > I still see no reason to jump ship at all. Unless they Soft devs working > on Maya introduce not only ICE to Maya, but some amazing improvement that > only exists in Maya, maybe. But I'll wager that ICE is not the only reason > people have built pipelines around Softimage. People seem to think that if > you axe the product now, it ceases to function. "We're going to stop making > hammers now, so whatever hammers you bought from us will no longer work." > > But when AD purchased XSI, they purchased a mature toolset that has stood > the test of time and has gone largely untouched since the acquisition! When > someone tells me that AD will 'cease upgrades' for Softimage, I think to > myself 'haven't they been doing that for some time now?' The core toolset > for which we (Magnetic) use Softimage is intact and reliable as ever. We > don't rely on ICE to the degree some of you do, but we do rely on the > following: > > - the modeling toolset > - passes/partitions/overrides > - referenced models > - operator stacks > - animation toolset > - API and customizability > - raw performance and stability > - the flippin component tweak tool > - etc... > > And if I understand correctly (I wasn't into XSI at the time of the > acquisition), these are feature sets that AD didn't contribute, and have > barely touched. So in my view, they've already been 'not upgrading' > Softimage for years. > More tragically though, the ceasing of development on Softimage would > trigger a slow death of 3rd party development for it, especially if people > get all gloomy and doomy and jump ship. All the 3rd party effort that has > been poured into Softimage tools over the last few years has been amazing > (!), and has done far more to enhance my productivity than anything AD ever > did (apart from, admittedly, improving the underlying platform for > ICE-based solutions). Redshift comes out of nowhere like a champ, > revolutionzing our renders. Eric Mootz, year after year, provides bridges > for people get the power of ICE without needing the underlying technical > know-how (as do many others!). Jeremie Passerin and Miquel Campos give us > rigging tools. Eric and Chris give us a jump on characters with Species. > Ben and Helge deliver the most robust, feature-friendly alembic > implementation available to the public. rray.de/xsi is rife with > contributions that are functional improvements to the system and provide > real solutions to real problems. If Softimage ceases to be officially > developed/supported , these 3rd party powerhouses will eventually stop as > well. And that's when we'll see the death of Softimage. And that day will > suck. So I'm more than happy to prolong this as much as possible by > supporting our 3rd party friends (and I wish I could buy more of their > licenses myself) who have been doing more to strengthen and improve > Softimage than AD has in years, because I think that's what will keep the > product alive as a viable solution for VFX. > > > > *Tim Crowson **Lead CG Artist* > > > *Magnetic Dreams, Inc. *2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, > TN 37214 > *Ph* 615.885.6801 | *Fax* 615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com > [email protected]<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');> > > *Confidentiality Notice: This email, including attachments, is > confidential and should not be used by anyone who is not the original > intended recipient(s). If you have received this e-mail in error please > inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other storage > mechanism. Magnetic Dreams, Inc cannot accept liability for any statements > made which are clearly the sender's own and not expressly made on behalf of > Magnetic Dreams, Inc or one of its agents.* > > >
