Hey fellows I will take Tim's letter as a template for the freelancers and small studios 2-5 people. Sounds reasonable?
Of course if Tim agrees. Cheers! ------------------------------------------------------- Emilio Hernández VFX & 3D animation. 2014-03-11 12:03 GMT-06:00 Rares Halmagean <[email protected]>: > So true, so true. I'd like to eco how amazing softimage is for individual > freelancers and small shops, especially since it's been backed by the > talented td and programmers here and online. > > I'll add that softimage will continue to be my tool of choice for years to > come. This makes it easier for me at least as I'm often creating assets > that can be ported to maya or elsewhere or contracted on a start to render > job. > > On 3/11/2014 11:21 AM, Tim Borgmann wrote: > > Hi, > unfortunately my english is not good enough to express my feelings and > thoughts about all this in a good and polite way and I think some mails > like the open letter from Alastair or the mails from Greg, Peter, Jean, > Sly, Daniel and so on express them much better than I could do. > > I'm just an artist, a simple freelancer, so my opinion will not be from > interest for AD I'm sure. But nonetheless here are just some additional > thoughts from my side: > > The main thing that surprises me about the decision from AD right now is > that they make this step (stopping SI) even before they can offer any kind > of alternative. > > A personal view from the artist point of view: > A lot of my work is based on ICE and at the moment I'm simply not able to > see a real alternative. Will I take a look at Houdini? Sure. Will I take a > look at Modo? Sure. Blender? Sure. ... I will take a look at a lot of > software within the next months, maybe years, to hopefully find something > that will fit again like SI did until now. ICE gives me the ability to > create things I would not be able to do before. I'm not a TD, I'm not able > to write my own tools, I'm just a plain artist and so what ICE was a pure > revolution for me and still is a joy to work with. As some of you maybe > know I did some advertising material for the launch of XSI 7. Although I > didn't use ICE for these images because of the fact that I didn't know ICE > at all at this time I very quickly realised the enormous power of it. Today > I would do it with ICE for sure and it would be much faster and more > flexible and so I would have much more time to work on the design and > content and would also get more sleep during production. > > As an artist you spend a lot of time in finding and learning the tools > which maybe fit best to you or better said to your work. At a certain point > you than hopefully reach a level with the tools where you can care more > about design or creativity than about technical issues. But it's maybe a > very long and hard way to get there and if you are there, if you can work > with a tool without too much thinking about technical issues (some will be > there always and you never stop learning for sure) you are very happy about > this (at least I am). You are happy that you can focus on the creative side > of the work and not only on solving technical problems. > > For sure you can learn a lot of things in another software rather fast > since the concepts are similar, but to get at a point where you are really > familar with a tool, where you really have a good feeling about what you > can do and what you better avoid is a long way. Moving a spotlight around > is one thing but finding the reason why your are getting unexpected results > for example is often a complete different story. > > Who knows, maybe I will find a new tool which even fits better, maybe not, > but just at the moment I feel like downgraded from a senior to a junior > artist within some days. And what's even more important I'm afraid that I > have to spend my time again on just solving technical issues instead on > creating images. > > I simply feel like an artist who get told that there will be no canvas, > brushes, oil colours any more soon and that I have to take a ball pen and > some finger colours instead to do the work I did before. But that's just my > personal point of view and it's for sure not from interest for AD. > > A more profesional view from the freelancer point of view and maybe a > thought worth for AD: > In my opinion the reason why SI does so well in particular in the > advertising area is simply because it provides a solid toolset out of the > box but even more important: it's flexible and fast. And that is was > working in the advertising area is about. Flexibility and speed. You have a > lot of different tasks, changes, corrections whatever to solve in sometimes > extremly short timeframes. Often there is simply no time and also no budget > for a big TD team which provides you the basic tools you need to do the > work. It has to be right out of the box. And this is what AD does not offer > with maya right at the moment. It's maybe a good tool for big > pipelines/movie productions or whatever, it's maybe a good framework for > custom tools, I don't know, but I doubt it is a good solution for doing > quick and creative productions where you maybe have to rethink or rebuild a > concept within an evening. Correct me if I'm wrong. > Alone the passes and partions system from SI is pure gold in these kind of > advertising productions. ICE is an option to create stuff where you > normally would need a bigger TD team and the accordingly time for > development. Or you can just use it to fix some smaller issues in the last > moment on top of your operator stack. The overall workflow of SI simply > fits in many areas of these kind of productions. So I'm really afraid for > all these innovative and great shops which deliver outstanding work in > short turnarounds and within a heavy competetion situation. During the last > years and due to for example additional tools like Arnold or the ones from > Eric, Helge and so on the quality of advertising productions done with SI > reaches a very high level in my opinion. Small shops or small teams are > able to create really outstanding work. > > As Daniel from Sehsucht stated out: "How can Autodesk get the timing so > wrong?" > You simply leave them with a big gap and no solution to fill it at the > moment. > > So in the end, I will use SI for as long as possible (at least as an > artist) and hope others will do so also. It's one of the best and most > productive tools I've ever used for my work and maybe will still be within > the next years. > > Best regards > Tim Borgmann > > > -- > > > *Rares Halmagean ___________________________________ *visual development > and 3d character & content creation. > *rarebrush.com* <http://rarebrush.com/> >
