That's easier for those in linear format production divided into discrete departments which are separable and work on projects which have definitive end dates.
I'm on a project which has been under development for nearly 9 years and is expected to be on the market as an iterated product for several years. We cannot switch so easily. Even if we rewrote our tools and had them up and running today to accommodate a different 3D product, we still have 9 years of backlog to support to the end of this project's days - that's a lot of content. The ability to exhume and modify that data, if necessary, could be a real problem down the line as operating systems, graphics APIs and other infrastructures continue to evolve. For example, although I can still run Softimage|3D on my home computer, I'm limited on the type of hardware, graphics cards, operating systems, and subset of features within the application that function correctly. I do not have an old compiler compatible with the application to write plugins to get data out if necessary. Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim Crowson Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: new upgrade policy "It'll be fine for a few years..." That's my point exactly, Steve. We're not talking in terms of weeks or months, but in years. There's a lot of life in Softimage still, and based on the events of the last few years, that life is not contingent solely upon AD's actions. Softimage is an extensible tool that will allow it to be viable for, as you said, a few more years. I don't think that's denial though. If anything it's an acknowledgment. I totally agree with what Sylvain said as well. Move things intelligently and not all at once. With the life left in Softimage, we should all have plenty of time to figure out our transitions. -Tim On 2/27/2014 10:26 PM, Steve Parish wrote: I see that everyone is at different stages at the moment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model#Stages Refusing to accept the fact is still stage 1! Its pretty obvious that one has to adapt or die. Who knows any compositors who will only work in Shake? It'll be fine for a few years but as soon as Arnold isnt being released for Soft (for example) you'll have to make a decision as to whether you want to stay in older versions or use the new technologies. The advice that Sylvain gave in another thread was pretty wise, change one department at a time. Rendering and lighting is a good start particularly if its an Arnold pipeline. I'm obviously crushed, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time. What's sad is that this kind of feels like the end of the road for the generalist. What could be achieved with a small crack team of XSI generalists now literally requires twice as many specialists with TD's supporting the scripts to make it all work. In terms of switching to non-Autodesk software, looking around the city at the available jobs, thats not really an option. I know I'm going to be the guy that moans how "easy this would be in Soft..." Good luck! Steve P On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 10:35 PM, Francisco Criado <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: 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]<mailto:[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<http://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<tel:615.885.6801> | Fax 615.889.4768<tel:615.889.4768> | www.magneticdreams.com<http://www.magneticdreams.com> [email protected]<mailto:[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. 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