Short version: 1) Softimage supports more than just film/video. There are people working in many industries which won't be served by mental ray and FBX updates. My studio is a prime example (games).
2) The SDK is not open enough for plugin developers to do what you suggest. Many of the 3rd party efforts to date usually required some amount of help from the Softimage developers to make possible. Softimage tended to implement new features, then expand the SDK to support those new features. For 3rd party development, you need the SDK expanded ahead of the features. In other words, while the SDK is mature, it's also not expanded too far outside of what you can already do out of the box. New plugin efforts would largely amount to using existing levers and switches instead of making new levers and switches like you and everybody else would like. There's still plenty of tools that can be written, but probably not anything earth shattering as the SDK is single threaded and some of the components it leans on are getting long in the tooth too as Luc-Eric has recently mentioned. Basically, Softimage is that car that still performs really great, but has high mileage and about to enter that period where major parts will need repairing/replacing making it a very expensive upkeep. Since the driver hasn't seen that breakage firsthand yet, he's under the impression there isn't a problem and the car can drive on indefinitely into the sunset. Autodesk was at our site just as the press release was officially hitting the wire. While no specifics were mentioned by Autodesk or our reseller in our offices, my personal poking, prodding and reading between the lines lead me to believe a lot of work (refactoring) has gone into Maya the past few years to accommodate some of this burden in migration, but some (much) work still has to come. I think we'll see parts of that work in Maya 2015 and probably explains why the Softimage Montreal team has been busy for the past 2 years on Maya instead of Softimage. I have no idea if there's any truth to this, but it's what I've come to believe based on the sparse bits and pieces I could put together, and witnessing how such migrations were handled in the past. I'll share the rest of my thoughts from 21+ years of Softimage experience in another thread at another time. Right now I'm neck deep in getting the project out the door Ben Houston so kindly posted the other day. Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of skuby Sent: Friday, March 14, 2014 8:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Idea- Just keep Mental Ray and FBX support - Softimage free w/Maya or Max or any Suite. Softimage is ready out of the box now with no new features added. Why not, leave it as is, but continue to support new Mental Ray and FBX updates so that it still continues to fit nicely into any pipeline and leave continued development past 2016 at those simple two things. Leave the rest up to plug-in developers and forever-more include Softimage as a free throw-in with any Maya or Max or Suite purchase or rental, so there will be many ways to own it or rent it while exclusively promoting your other packages. The other great thing, since it can only now come with Max/Maya or a Suite, is that Soft users are never a financial burden to their employers since it will always be a free seat with any existing Max/Maya licence. This could be a very easy, welcomed add-on to the existing Softimage retirement announcement. Please please, consider this as an option Autodesk and please, everyone, support and promote this idea to Autodesk, I think it's our best bet and we might actually be able to get this. -regards
