I think that's pretty cool !
And not necessarily all that ambitious. (1 effect / character each)
and as suggested it could be the beginning and the end of the "Life
after XSI doc" peice.
So How about this...
*For the Intro.. * (almost as proposed)
Characters could all start coming out of XSI interfaces
on studio desks (shot), and out of buildings,
(can be any cool looking or lofty buildings, or known studios..),
A couple of Toony toons, maybe 1 (or 2) realistic creatures,
perhaps "strandy" swarms, or traily smoke / fire orbs,
moving across and around various landscapes,
and/or typically identifyable city blocks
if not 1 (or 2) landmarks,
(I personally have a navigable camera projected realistic NY cityscape )
(CUT)
________________________
(Doc Part)
I (or someone) could write-up the main points that have been agreed to
be fair on the list,
perhaps starting with some history...
(Rough Outline)
- - - - - - - - - - - -
*XSI/Maya History*
* - SI3D (then standard) & Alias ... Both working on Next Gen
Products,
* - Maya released first in '98 with good animation tools and new
paradigms,
* - XSI v1 came in 2000
(introduced in an already saturated market with a first
version barely usable,
while Maya was on good ground)
Then XSI picked up, and arguably surpassed Maya on many fronts by v2
with advanced functionality of
* Passes,
* very fast / versatile sub'd & excellent modeling tools,
* very flexible ( multi-windows of any view + Multi-Editing )
& pleasing interface ( maya looked like win95 ),
* Reliable MentalRay renderer ( vs Maya Software Render ),
* and unmatched stable & easy yet powerful non-destructive workflow.
*Maya Pros;*
* Very open platform,
* very customisable for large(er) studios,
* advantages of wide usage,
* and agressive marketing with big-movie magazine spreads.
(What am I missing?)
*other XSI innovations;*
*v4* FXTree with (v5) procedural effect tree texture processing
*v6 * Gator "Almost magic" attribute transfer
*v7* ICE Nodal effect trees of abstract tools
for particle & model effects & Visual Programming
* Despite many advantages of XSI over time, never surpassed ~20%
share.
* Maya has, from it's 1st release, become a widely-used standard
while virtually *all* studios that DID adopt XSI,
consistently saw what it was all about, & never looked back.
* While XSI /still/ had relative success with a flourising &
prominent presence.
__________________
*Autodesk Aquires XSI* (arguably the beginning of the end,
out of the following, if anyone can point-out some more positive notable
events, that would be great)
- Marc Petit & Marc Stevens initial interview
talking about "Collaboration" and "Partnership",
answering questions about product "overlap"
* clip; *Marc Petit pointing out how technology & developpers
could be "shared"
(nervously said while "gulp-ing")
*- Press Release quotes ;; * "Autodesk will be a good home for
Softimage "
*-* Widely held initial belief that absorption was to reduce or
eliminate competition,
based on the fact that there was already ownership of several
market-standard solutions
for acheiving similar ends.
- Wiping of the former 40,000 post forum,
(replaced with a Quite decent (yet new) Area SI Forum),
with all links to the former forum pointing to a generic page
full of anything but XSI
& generic page being second from the top of search results
just under the unnofficial www.SI-Community.com
- - -
*2011 *(to date)
- Virtual complete absence in media channels,
- No SI suites, while other Suite Bundles included no-extra-charge
Softimage licences
- New version press release portraying XSI as ICE Centric app (or
accessory)
Perhaps understandably favoring more popular apps,
yet *near-complete* marketing abscence .. was not as easily
understandable.
- - -
*2012 *
* *XSIBase Demise *(non-ADSK related)
* *Unannounced Core Dev re-purposing *
& transfer of all SI related dev to new much smaller crew in
Singapore .
(finally discovered by leaked tweets)
Perhaps understandable employee redistribution in favor of market
standard solution..
yet -*complete*- employee repurposing including well-known
"SI-Mascot" Chinny,
.. was not as easily understandable.
- Public denials of any intents to discontinue products.
- Relative Scarcity of new features,
With some of the those features actually being very good from
the new Singapore crew..
with many, some even quite long standing and deep, bug fixes.
- - -
*2013* (nervously claimed) Bright Future claims by Daniel (Tolido?) for
the 2014 release
- - -
*2014 *
*Softimage EOL!* with a 2 year limit on usage for those chosing to
continue upgrade plans,
and 3 week limit on new customer sales.
with no possibility to scale (get new licences) beyond 2016 for existing
customers.
*Next day partial reversal *
- allowing *perpetual* use for existing customers while remaining on
upgrade plans
- thus allowing to open, and use previously created scenes & assets,
and continue to use XSI in productions indefinately (reasonablly
good considering the circustances)
- with possibility to scale (get new licences) for existing customers
but not beyond 2016
( what actually changed on that point? )
__________________________*
Advantages of XSI to this day.. and beyond.. *
*Extremely Streamlined workflow ;; *
* - Proven almost 2x faster production time on many if not most
regular every-day tasks
o with very-high end-result success rate for more complex
setups and processes,
o without need for custom scripts/tools, or specialzed plugins.
* Age-old unsurpassed Passes Paradigm
* Age-old unsurpassed very fast (~2x) & versatile Sub-d's (not just
for previews)
* Age-old unsurpassed Shapes System
*Stable & Non destuctive ;;*
* Mixing/matching ICE and native deformers and effects in complex scenes
* Changing whatever, when changes need to be made
(generally, or when repurposing,
or when clients decide to turn on dimes at the last moment..
as usual)
*Default simplicity and complexity on demand / Overall Straghtforwardness*
* Moving back and forth between Explorer trees, Render trees and ICE
trees,
easily drilling down in complexity,
replacing entire sections with others
without (or with little) breakage or too much readjustments
__________________
*Maya advantages*
* Widely used Standard (job/employee availability),
* Relatively swift response with relatively large amount of objects
and large polygon count
* Nice quirks (some *very* nice);
- easy high-performance cloth & other dynamics (including native
fluids),
- advanced and efficient high-quality viewports (2.0) with DX11
support (and beyond)
- Good potential for new technologies in the future, including
an eminent form of ICE equivalency,
(perhaps offsetting the burden of dependancy on scripts to a
certain extent.)
* *... (am I missing something?)*
________
Despite many definite advantages.. users that work everyday with both
(including many that actually started with Maya)
*Overwhelmingly* favor XSI just for it's advantage of get things done quick
(& relatively worry-free)
in (almost always) tight deadlines/resources.
* - not like Coke/Pepsi where it's merely a matter of taste or *habit*
* - High Unlikelyhood of Maya to Ever come close in terms of overall
performance
(in real terms.. reffering to core workflow)
_________
*SI EOL (?)* (cost saving? Could stop dev while (further) relaxing
restrictions )
not easily understandable/justifiable
*If* decision to migrate ;
* - Unlike other migrations, very limited choices for viable replacement
* - The effect on Studios & Freelancers with previously setup
pipelines with XSI
accepting relatively serious productivity hits (including
post-adoption)
especially for smaller places/individuals.
* - Unlike other migrations, very limited choices for viable replacement
People & shops having to choose between ;;
o considerably more (often comparatively /over-/)complicated
software
(for more or less the same "power") ;; *Maya/**Houdini*
o *OR* (over-)simplified or otherwise comparatively lacking
solutions
( some more seriously, while others continue to advance in
bounds )*
Modo, Blender, C4D, Lightwave,* ...
*Several Press Articles *
stating that the decision made based on the fact that there was already
current ownership
of several market-standard solutions acheiving similar ends.
_____
*Hope
*
* - Opening-up the XSI SDK for better future sustainability without
excessive cost.
* - The yearn for a "New Option" or a true(er) "SoftiMaya"
* - Fabric Hope
* - Modo Hope
- - - - - - - - -
All that could be narrated over related footage.
(or slow zoomed-in/out pans of quality stills representing what is
talked about)
.. inter-cut with outstanding productions/creations ,
and ideally 1 (or 2) testomonials..
Ideally from well known studios talking about /confirming points being
narrated.
- - - - - - - - -
(end of doc)
______________________
(Out-tro)
- 1 (or 2) more shots of previously seen characters going somewhere,
- then all crowding-up over at AD M&E headquarters
- & ending on a close-up of one of the characters which is *just about
to knock* on the door,
just before -cutting to black-
& then hearing a loudish "knock-knock-knock" sound
resonating on a big metal door on that black frame ending (and/or
XSI logo)
(AD's door is actually big and metal)
- - - -
It would be great if that main (simpler) character was made from
scratch,
quickly created by an experienced professional using speedmodeling
tricks,
auto-rigging it with gear, and making it come alive in a few strokes,
(showing XSI's .. then perhaps rehearsed, yet un-faked creation speed)
all while recording, to then play it "timelapse" at the beginning intro
when the character comes alive to emerge out of the screen.
- - - -
Okay.... thoughts? Comments? Is everything fair?
On 03/11/14 22:03, Bk wrote:
Ok, I can't sleep and have had an idea.
I think it would be good to make a visual metaphor of the situation.
I've been thinking that we would need to do something that could be
attacked modularly and allows a huge variety in styles coming
together. What we also have in our favour is that we come from
different parts of the world and all do different styles of work.
So my idea is. cgi on live action plates..filmed on dslr by different
folk around the globe.
It's based on the wizard of oz.
We start with one character, leaving a studio and start to walk, then
we cut to another studio with another totally different character
style, walking or moving.
This repeats. It doesn't have to be characters only, we could have a
dust cloud, or an ICE strand tangle. The more variety of cgi oddities
the better. We then cut to more of them moving through different
landmarks around the globe. ( assuming between us we know someone who
lives nearby enough to film them)
There could be Godzilla stomping through New York, an ice tangle going
under the Eiffel tower. they are all going somewhere. It could be as
epic as we can make it. There Could be a car chase, Whatever, as long
as they are moving somewhere with purpose.
Some characters could board a massive spaceship which takes off.
Others could get on a huge ocean liner.They are all making their way
somewhere.
It culminates as a huge bizarre crowd of CGI 'things' gather at the
door of a big imposing building. A small character at the front knocks
We cut to text along the lines of "Please save us"
I know it sounds epic, but that's kind of the point and if we had say
40 people doing a little bit each and maybe reused old personal
assets, it might be achievable. I could dig Greg Mutt out and probably
do a Godzilla shot in a few days.
