I don't think that is an option as AD isn't going to give up source code which holds many patents. If they did, I would tend to think the asking price would be too steep.
But let's pretend AD offers the source code and the price is affordable - is Softimage really worth the price of acquiring as a business venture? Based on all the pieces of information I've gathered about the product over the years, it sounds like it would take a few years just to get familiar with the code and be comfortable enough to do any significant work. While one could inherit a nice system like ICE, animation mixer, render pass system, and so on. To put new features into it would likely require a lot of study of existing code for ripple effect of adding new features or implementing significant changes. The application as a whole is still tremendously useful and a great general purpose 3D environment, but it's design is from the 1990's and showing its age in some areas. The user interface is still single threaded, the playback engine isn't the speediest and doesn't loop nicely, and the real time shaders aren't real time. Some of the things we would want to implement in Softimage if we had the source code would be things that I don't think the architecture supports - ability to put modeling operators outside the modeling marker or pin them into specific slots of the construction history to enforce order of evaluation, for example. On a personal level, having been around the product for so long I would be extremely interested in looking and tinkering with the source code, and perhaps fix/modify stuff that always drove me nuts. It would at least explain why certain things are the way they are. I always thought it be a nice gesture if at Siggraph you'd get swag in the form of a capsule on a keychain that contained all the source code to discontinued product(s). Granted, this will not likely ever happen due to patents, trade secrets, and other business interests, but would be good for customer morale and developing interest in 3D animation. I wonder if anybody would gain anything (business-wise) from obtaining the Softimage|3D code today considering its successor is also on its way out to pasture? It would be more useful swag than T-shirts or CD cases. As for my employer, I cannot speak on their behalf. Matt >Hey Matt -- > >Out of genuine curiosity -- can your employers not get a source code license >out of AD? IIR, deals like that were >not unknown among the larger studios -- or was that all pre-acquisition? > >Ed
