For a good chunk of the 1990's, Softimage|3D was a popular (commercial) software for major 3D productions. Studios had their custom tools and proprietary pipeline stuff, but Softimage|3D was a workhorse for artists. Softimage was only available on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX (unix).
In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage and made significant changes to the business such as making the software cheaper, porting it to windows NT, and buying out many 3rd party plugins and including them as native features of the software. At that time there was also much competition between hardware vendors and processor manufacturers (Mips, Digital, Sun, Intel, ...). Softimage expanded to make the software available for the many variants of hardware with popularity cutting into competitor's Alias and Wavefront significantly. As a reaction and fearing being killed off by Microsoft (then as large / dominant / influential as Google and Apple are today), Silicon Graphics acquired both Alias and Wavefront in 1995 and immediately started project 'Maya' to merge the best parts of both companies' products into a unified application. Originally targeted for release in 1996, about a month or two before expected release in early 1997, SGI pulled the software back behind the curtain to do some reworking of code to make Maya portable to windows and other operating systems. During that same time, Softimage announced project 'Sumatra' to rewrite Softimage|3D from the ground up as the next generation 3D software because Softimage|3D really wasn't designed with Windows NT in mind and had some core issues. Sumatra was originally announced to be available in 1996 in conjunction with Digital Studio and 'Twister' - an interactive version of mental ray which included interactive rendering and shader creation, but numerous technical issues delayed release by years. In the meantime, development of Softimage|3D slowed to being mostly bug fixes and service packs. In early 1998, SGI released Maya to the public with a base price of ~$7,995 USD for the base package and up to ~$36,000 USD for the entire suite. In June 1998, Microsoft sold Softimage to Avid, delaying Sumatra even further. After the latest delay, many frustrated customers started to abandon Softimage and move to Maya as Maya had replicated many of Softimage|3D's important features while introducing new features such as scripting to empower users to write their own tools and solve their own problems (Softimage|3D had a C/C++ plugin API, but not scripting). Softimage then went into overdrive to get Sumatra out the door ASAP - cutting corners by dropping features as necessary, Twister being the first to get the axe, and devoting most remaining Softimage|3D development resources to Sumatra. In May 2000, Sumatra was finally released as "Softimage|XSI" with "Animation R3defined" as the main slogan featuring the non-destructive animation mixer and integrated mental ray rendering, but sadly, no polygonal modeling or Texture UV editing. That would come months later in Softimage|XSI v1.5. Main differences between Softimage|3D and Softimage|XSI: Everything....except spacebar to select, and X,C,V to scale, rotate and translate ;-) Mat From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 3:18 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: new upgrade policy So is the point that it got "shitter" when it became SI XSI ? cause it feels pretty good at the mo :P On 1 March 2014 00:15, Eric Turman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Completely different codebase. Softimage|3D was a port from SGI (Alias Power Modeler/Power Animator was its competitor) Softimage|XSI was the next generation product to compete with Maya. On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 5:12 PM, Sebastien Sterling <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: was there some kind of massive disparity between softimage 3D and softimage XSI, ? On 1 March 2014 00:07, Emilio Hernandez <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Exactly. I've been using Softimage since the first release from Microsoft I believe in 1994. So been around for so long that my memory starts to fade. But the thing is the Softimage was used in that feautre. [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg] 2014-02-28 17:02 GMT-06:00 Matt Lind <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Softimage|3D was available at that time (~v3.51), but Softimage|XSI did not become available until May 2000. Matt From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 3:01 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: new upgrade policy When Dragonheart came out... Funny that came in out in 1996. So maybe I was using some other thing and not Softimage 3D. As for Maya you are right it was Alias|Wavefront [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg] 2014-02-28 16:10 GMT-06:00 Luc-Eric Rousseau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Neither Maya nor Softimage|XSI existed at the time On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 4:25 PM, Emilio Hernandez <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Don't forget about Dragon Heart. I read the article on CG magazine quiet a long time ago. They were supposed to end the whole feature in Maya. But then after modeling, they just couldn't move the dragon. So they animated it in Softimage. 2014-02-28 15:20 GMT-06:00 Sebastien Sterling <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: It's pretty much the software that wove the cinematic experiences of my childhood and I never new: Casper, Joe's apartment, independence day, the Matrix, MIB, Fight Club Jurassic Park, Titanic the Mask etc... It was responsible for several Academy Award Nominations let alone community awards. Sony E, ILM, Weta ? -- -=T=-
