Autodesk,
you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly
subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself.
I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small
games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS
on Dos.
>From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven
interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to
the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i
was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a
backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and
more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my
abilities)
For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of
Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i
was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick
turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients,
asking for me by name.
Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well
above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I
worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back
from the dead.
My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know,
but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award
winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the
mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006.
The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the
end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground
running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer,
allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking
budgets of television should have allowed.
There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small
team, using ANY other package.
Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the
morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when
i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or
even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO
alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing
comes close.
And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community.
The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its
members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to
compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of
encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is
one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie.
A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions,
and someone will usually be there to help you out.
Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would
impress upon you to consider;
Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better
marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your
Houdini.
Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work
together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until
Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the
suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby!
a
Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
75-77 Margaret St.
London
W1W 8SY
++44(0) 207 580 0829
[email protected]
<blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::mailto:[email protected]>
www.fluid-pictures.com
<blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::http://www.fluid-pictures.com/>
Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales.
Company number:5657815
VAT number: 872 6893 71
