Well, seeing the responses from AD officials in this post, it looks like we won't be getting even FBX/Mental Ray updates to extend Softimage's retirement past 2016, it was only a defeatist's last wish anyways, but I had to try. I know Max, Maya and Softimage, I've spent some many dedicated years in each of them. The development of all 3 of them have sadly stagnated under AD's roof (I'm not being rude, that's just an honest observation from a user who doesn't run custom proprietary Pixar/ILM/Weta versions of these software's, I run them out of the box, as is, with a few preference changes and plug-ins and a few self-written scripts).
My plan is to keep using Softimage as is, and to learn Side Effect's "Houdini" which I started yesterday (and it's quite promising so far) if not to just have yet another tool in my bag of tricks. Moving exclusively back to Maya (or Max) as it sits now, would be a harsh downgrade. I'm excited (but honestly highly skeptical) to see what AD does with Maya and their new refined focus development approach, -I'll be paying close attention to Maya 2015 and Maya 2016 but as far as going back to Maya exclusively, that doesn't make any good sense at this time. My hopes are high for the future and Maya will always and continue to be a useful tool in my bag, but for it to return to number one spot again for me, it's just a dream at this point as that isn't a realistic option at this time in reality, now. Max looks like it's next on the chopping block, although I think with Max they will never officially say it is dead and just keep selling it to avoid this sort of debacle but it's pretty clear Max will continue to be a second class package. If there is any package I will continue to leave on the shelf, it will be Max, maybe that is paranoid but I think it's justifiably paranoid and I really don't think I need to take anyone's word to the contrary, considering how cheap words are in this business. Anyways, best of luck to all of my fellow Softimage users out there. I hope you all find and come to the conclusions that are best for you, individually, and have a great time forward. I'm not going to keep posting further, I've chosen my new path, wish me luck and I wish all the best of luck back to you all and I wish the best of luck to Autodesk, in particular to their continued development of Mudbox, Maya and Sketchbook in that order. -Cheers, respect and best regards to all.
