Hi Chris Part of the problem is the users have been begging to be heard for years now. Even if it was under NDA. Unfortunately the very few times that happened it was only for a very small amount of people at specific events (that 99% of your user base couldn't go to) I have asked to be put under NDA so I could find out what went on many times only to be told its limited to only the attendees. Whats happening now is very much reactionary to try and keep people within the AD fold. Its very plain that currently the majority of people who have voiced their opinion have come down to this. Use SI for as long as possible while finding a non AD alternative/s to switch to in the future. Which I am fairly sure was very far from AD's original thinking.
The 2013 and 2014 subscription releases were massive proof that AD was incredibly out of touch with everyone except a few studios in the far east. The major release for 2014 (ie the Camera sequencer ) wasn't even done with subscription money. It was paid for via your consultancy arm. This went a long way to explain why it was pretty much useless to everyone else. So people were already pissed off because their subscription money was giving a tiny ROI compared to Maya. Because of this when it was announced it generated a lot of anger. People are still very angry, and while I don't necessarily agree with people telling you personally to bugger off I can understand why they say that. Because of the way this was done it directly affects peoples livelihood. There will be companies that will close and a lot of freelancers that will loose jobs because they will not be allowed to use a tool of their choice. With the best of intentions Maya is no where near as optimal as SI for the solo artist / small studio. You have had nearly a months worth of the worlds best artists telling you exactly that (years if you guys were listening on si-community). There is just no way that they can do the same work in the same time using Maya. That directly screws the bottom line. time = money. Going around a month or so telling your bigger clients what was happening was not nearly enough time and woefully inadequate.. For education it is a much bigger problem. While the commercial guys can go on using SI till you pry it from their cold dead fingers we cant. The day you announced it EOL we are no longer able to offer it as an option. No student in their right mind is ever going to play to learn EOL software. The irony is we have just last year gotten to the point of entering into international festivals (and being accepted and doing well) I can tell you that for a fact that would have been impossible using Maya. Because we will have to switch back to Maya (because of industry reasons) we will have lost all of that momentum. We dont use ICE in our course due to time constraints but it very obvious to anyone in touch with the industry that Maya is a long way off providing a replacement for it. I am not against AD having fewer dcc apps. In fact if you go through my postings on si-community you will see I have called for AD moving to only one cross platform application. Until you do that you will always be out innovated no matter what technologies you put in. Mayas biggest problem is its a mass of really great tech with very little workflow benefit to show for it. The major problem is that SI EOL while inevitable (which I am sure to catch some flak for) was announced before Maya was in anyway able to replace it. Which brings me to my last point. Maya should not have been the replacement to begin with. Take a step back and see that trying to replace one 20+ year old software with another 20+ year old software is a plan which will ultimately fail. No matter what great innovation you cram into Maya its base nuts and bolts has a limit. If your not working on a next Gen framework as of now you are in serious trouble. I have only heard of one commercial place locally looking at Maya as a replacement (our hand is somewhat forced in education for now) for SI. Everyone else is looking at apps like Houdini as they can see it as a long term investment. Autodesk has not only opened the door to Alternatives with their handling of this whole thing they have practically invited them in. These are companies which are not bound by the same rules that you are. They are agile, they can tell people whats coming (and invite public opinion) and most importantly they actively engage with their communities. All of which you are unable to be. I wish you the best of luck trying to integrate SI into Maya. Personally I think its a very bad idea. The last thing Maya needs is more workflow options. Kind regards Angus ________________________________ From: Chris Vienneau [[email protected]] Sent: 15 March 2014 05:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Idea- Just keep Mental Ray and FBX support - Softimage free w/Maya or Max or any Suite. Emilio there are people on this list and within the community that are working with us right now and taking us up on our offer to hear more about what we are doing? What do you have to lose to hear our plan? cv/ <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="width:100%;"> <tr> <td align="left" style="text-align:justify;"><font face="arial,sans-serif" size="1" color="#999999"><span style="font-size:11px;">This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 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