Well I really do not understand this Autodesk "client oriented" policy. But if I was there, at this time at least, I would have come in and asked at least for an apology and will reschedule the webinar.
What sense it makes to watch a recorded webinar without the live QA session? They were already filtering the questions if it is true that they were actually real questions more focused in the "if I have a horse can I trade it for a pony?" We waited two weeks to hear what they have to offer us that will show how wrong we were for not believe in them. This only confirms that we should not believe in them and that they really do not care about us. Seems that the removal of the timebomb was more "a taking a step ahead before someone will come with a lawsuit based on damages". This two weeks of "we are listening you" were nothing else but BS, while they were trying to make us sing "everything is wonderful". Again the door of uncertainty and speculation is wide open. Nothing Autodesk has told us about why they decided to kill Softimage makes full sense at all. The only thought in my mind is that Softimage was coming from behind even without proper branding/marketing strategy, and their Maya cardhouse was starting to fall apart. Cheaper than Maya, less human resources to operate, no big dev team behind to create tools that should be out of the box or to fix things that get broken. Better workflow... Even without been truly improved since Autodesk acquired it. ICE not only for particles or VFX but as well to find quick workarounds for rigging and precedural modeling. Lots of money spent in Maya "innovation" but that it seems they only bought plugins to Maya brand them. Call it the conspiracy theory if you want. But it makes more sense than any other "official" explanation. Imagine how they will look if Autodesk starts selling more Softimage seats instead of Maya. Even that they have invested a lot in Maya and nearly nothing in Softimage. -- ------------------------------------------------------- Emilio Hernández VFX & 3D animation.
