Wow Stephan, Thanks for sharing. I remember in some of my early days with Softimage CE (starting 21 years ago), Spans+Partners work on some of the early Softimage reels inspiring me to explore more. It makes me happy to be reminded of this so many years later, even at such a depressing moment it Softimage history.
Thanks again, Alex On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Stephan Hempel <[email protected]> wrote: > after laying around the whole night and couldn't sleep here are my 2 cents > on the whole situation. > > When you look at the history of Softimage it's quite obvious that > developing a software for this industry is quite a challenge. I think there > is reason why Daniel Langlois sold Softimage to Microsoft, because he > couldn't stand the developing costs for a complete rewrite anymore. And > when you see how long it took until XSI and later Moondust got on the > market you may have glimpse what it means to develop a piece Software with > this kind of sophistication. > > I can only hope that FabricEngine and all the others develop a better > business model then the traditional one with investors outside of the > industry who are not bound to the company they are invested in and can sell > their investment at anytime to anywhom. I think the only solution are > strong bounds into the 3D industry itself. > > I want to show you an example. In the Germany there is a company called > DATEV. They do a very unsexy thing: tax accounting software. But the > interesting part is that this company has been built by its customers and > is owned by its customers in form of a cooperative society. The company > exists since 1966 which gives you an idea about the stability and longevity > of such the business model. > More info about you find here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datev > > As manufacturing 3D software is obviously not a highly profitable business > (or why else Softimage got sold from the founder via Microsoft throught > AVID to Autodesk, Maya from Wavefront through Alias to Autodesk, 3dsmax > from Kinetix through discreet* to Autodesk) > I can only strongly recommend to stay away from financal investors and the > stock market and try to finance the development through the 3D industry > itself. > > By the way if you look at Autodesk's latest business figures then you get > the impression that big troubles can arise. Last years revenue dropped > significantly especially when you compare it to the performance of the > competition in the engineering sector. Engineering is 93% of their business > by the way. M&E only contributes 7% to their revenue and is decreasing. > Related to that I don't think that cloud based services which is > supposedly the next big thing is wanted by such a conservative industry > like the engineering industry is. And believe me or not they are > conservative. I have some clients in this field. When this cloud based > thing goes down the drain it is likely that Autodesk gets in big trouble > and will therefore concentrate on its core business and will as consequence > sell its stepchild M&E to whomever may have an interest in it (hopefully > not a financial investor). > > Well I have no glass ball in front of me but I think the 3D industry > should be prepared for such a situation since Autodesk has a dominant > market position and apparently no one seems to care. > > It's a shame their will be no other software with a > middle-click-this-button-to-repeat-the-last-command functionality anymore > because Autodesk owns the patent on this and many other innovative concepts > which made Softimage unique and stand out. So I think I will stay with "my > second love" until I go the "Kim Aldis route". > > Just my 2 cents. Sorry for the rambling speech. > > I am still very thankful that I got in touch with Softimage at Spans und > Partner 8 years ago after messing around with 3dsmax and Maya. Thanks to > the developers and the community for supporting such a great product over > the last 28 years. > > Cheers, > Stephan. > > +1 > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Mar 5, 2014, at 5:11, Jeffrey Dates <[email protected]> wrote: > > This. > Everything Andy said. > > > > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 4:52 PM, Andy Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > > Many studios having the same problems at the same time is a HUGE > opportunity if we leverage it properly. > > I completely agree about the collaboration that will be necessary from > users. However, for studios' part, I know a lot of places are interested > in Fabric already, even if they haven't actually bought licenses yet. So > if part of the incentive was some kind of agreement for the FE guys to help > nurture a scene assembly tool to life quickly, it might help tip the scale > for whatever cost/benefit analysis places are doing. The devs working on > Fabric are truly some of the best in the world (and from what I understand, > a big part of the reason AD bought Softimage to begin with). They are a > big part of the equation for what will happen in the future, even if they > don't end up wanting to build a scene assembler as a supported "product" in > itself (or who knows -- maybe they will?). > > It would be great to get a little (or big?) list of studios that are > interested in this sort of project (or other ones) and possibly have some > kind of summit with the FE guys about what it would take to fast-track FE > into certain critical areas of production, assuming a certain number of > licenses were purchased. No commitments at this point -- just a list of > interested parties who might be curious enough to be part of the > conversation, pending whatever other conversations need to be had with > superiors. I.e., it's understood that nobody is speaking for their > companies at this point. Just indicating that they think their company > *might* be interested. > > I'll start: > > Psyop > Massmarket > > > > > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Felix Geremus <[email protected]> > wrote: > > You are probably right. But these times are a little bit different and > maybe that's exactly the one chance inside all this mess. We're all sitting > in the same boat at the same time. I know a lot of studios who entirely > rely on Softimage for lighting. All of these will have to spend time and > thus money to move on to another pipeline during the next two years anyway. > So why not invest at least parts of this time into the same thing? > Individuals are great, and the community should absolutely try. But it's so > hard to put something like this together in your spare time. A few studios > supporting and profiting from this effort would accelerate the whole > process immensely. And about showing potential: wasn't Stage, and all the > other fabric applications build for exactly this reason? To show the > potential of such a project? > > > > > 2014-03-04 21:55 GMT+01:00 Steven Caron <[email protected]>: > > > it is a bit harder for visual effects vendors/studios, in an already > difficult market, spending money on software development (not their core > business) is a hard sell. seeing a product or product in development on the > other hand drums up interest which leads to real investment and > collaboration. they need to see if their ideas are aligned with others on > the project. don't take my comment as discouragement, it is just how i see > it... for now it will be on individuals to come together on a project which > shows potential. i hope we, the remaining softimage community, can do that > together. again, not discouragement to any studio which wants to partner to > make something happen... > > steven > > > > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Felix Geremus < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > So now that Softimage will be gone, isn't there room or even need for > collaboration here? Before everybody tries to build something themselves, > shouldn't people try to bundle forces? And I'm not only talking about > individuals here. I'm talking about small to medium size companies who > couldn't afford to build something like this alone. > > > > > > -- > Mit freundlichen Grüssen > Stephan Hempel > mailto:[email protected] > >
