I have to agree with Emilio. I have over 10 years of experience with the present interface, and I remember postponing the transition from Softimage 3D to XS,I in 2000, for almost 3 years. I'm glad I did it now, but it was painful. Now that I have a snappy render from Redshift 3D, and I'm finally starting to play around with ICE compounds, I really don't want to start that process all over again.
One of the reason that I have stuck with Softimage is because I have tried to learn other 3D Apps and the path is so painfully slow, and I need to get work done quickly, as I am a freelancer and not on corporate welfare (my term for being able to educate yourself while on the corporate dime) It is so much easier to add new tools (plugins and ICE compounds) a bit at a time, as needed for projects. I will give a simple example. I needed to animate grass growing and blowing in the wind for a commercial. I already knew that strands might be a good way to accomplish the basics of the scene. I did a little research and found Zybrand Grass 3.0 <http://vimeo.com/48832905> . Now, through the kindness of Zybrand Jacobs, I has a nice set of compounds that helped me design something more custom to the job. Plug and play around a little, as opposed to reinventing the wheel. I also know where all the "knobs and switches" are I am "comfortable" in the cockpit of Softimage. Maybe it is just a case of an old dog refusing to learn new tricks, but it is invested time, that I am not producing animation and making money. How bad can the SDK be, anyway? I must admit, I am clueless to that aspect, as I am not even a good TD. Alok, I like you attitude. working with what we already have and not starting all over again. Just my 2 (not TD) cents. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 10:24 PM, Emilio Hernandez <[email protected]> wrote: > Not really Raffaele. > > There are a lot of us that switching to other tool will mean loss of time > and be less competitive by using other software. Specially Maya. And that > in my particular case I can hold up at Softimage as long as there is an OS > that runs it. > > How far can you improve your workflow with other DCC tools compared to > Softimage, if Softimage is still the best tool there, even if it is dead? > > How much development are you expecting of Maya to behave the way Softimage > does. > > A fresh toolset will make a "dead" software even more efficient. So there > is a market IMHO that will get this tools. > > The problem with Combustion is not that it was dumped or stopped running, > It still runs very good. The problem was the lack of plugins that will > actually will make me work faster. > > That is why I turned into other comp apps. Not because it is out of date > or useless now. > > Just a thought. > > Cheers! > > ------------------------------------------------------- > Emilio Hernández VFX & 3D animation. > > > 2014-03-05 21:18 GMT-06:00 Raffaele Fragapane <[email protected] > >: > > Can I humbly suggest TDs spend their time more productively instead, for >> both themselves and the community, and start looking at other vendors? >> >> We can wish upon a star all we want, but, as hurtful as it might be, Soft >> is dead and will not be brought back to life. You can tazer the corpse >> until it spasms, but it won't be life. >> >> What you COULD do, however, for the sake of the same people that made >> Soft what you loved as a software and as a community, is make good use of >> your time to diversify your skills and give support to platforms such as >> Fabric. >> >> Hopefully I won't get flamed or misunderstood for this, but honestly, >> there'd be no worse thing to see than seeing people doing further damage to >> themselves by clinging to a corpse after the damage done to the app and its >> history. >> Look at LW to see the depth of sadness this can get to. I'd rather the >> people I've come to know and respect on this list don't devolve into what's >> left of its userbase. >> >> You also get to make more of a difference for the future of industry and >> vendors if you spend your time on a project that has a chance to live, and >> you get to learn a lot of things that Soft is entirely too far behind on >> for you to properly learn on. >> >> Sorry, might sound cold, but it's a helluva lot more practical. >> >> >> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Alok Gandhi <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> Hey Guys, >>> >>> Calling out all the Soft Tool developers/ TDs out there. I know there >>> are lots of awesome out there for Soft but let's create more tools for the >>> community. >>> >>> >>> I am willing to devote my time to develop more tools and will ask the >>> same of other developers. >>> >>> If anyone has a request / idea for a Tool from Soft that they need, >>> please post it here. >>> >>> Developers please feel free to take on this projects. >>> >>> If anyone likes this idea and can quickly setup a web page (like redmine >>> ticket system), it will be great. >>> >>> Cheers ! >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it >> and let them flee like the dogs they are! >> > > -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956* [email protected] *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke <http://www.3danimationmagic.com>
