Re: Autodesk webinar

[Jason S]

Hi, Sorry, I'm sure it's been a long day. But some of the continuing responses (some to be honest being rather full of fluff) just begs to be addressed. On 03/18/14 11:11, Perry Harovas wrote: Maurice, I know things change, but this statement from Marc was only a year and a half ago: “Autodesk plans to continue to develop all of products mentioned [in this story]. These are all solutions that serve many different customer needs across multiple industries and in many different types of workflows.  We are not discontinuing development on any of the products you mentioned but we will increase focus in specific areas where individual products are strong." Maurice Patel wrote: Hi Perry, At that time, although Softimage was not an area we were planning on investing more in, there was no plan to discontinue it. That decision was only made at the end of last year. Last year was a watershed one for the industry for many different reasons resulting in many significant changes to our strategy. At the time this statement was made we did not even have any plans for MayaLT. The thing is, from the very beginning, the question on everyone's mind was.. < what about the "overlap"? >  (and the widely held suspicions around just that), or.. how can 3 competing products be (or continue to be) under the same roof? And now (at the very end) when reading the various stories about the demise,  *also mentioned in yesterdays webinar*, the stated reasons for the demise was all around.. yep..  "overlap"  and the redundancy of having all these competing products under the same roof. (while also mentionning how long ago it was decided) , Plus of course, considering the goals of the acquisition (technology & skilled personnel "sharing"), the absence of marketing, all the dowgrading... .. saying that this wasn't in the cards till just lately, is hard to -not- see as quite stretch. And the latest vow of confidence was at the somewhat recent 2014 launch. While perhaps that was from all the pressure from people (including me) saying ; "don't you dare pull the rug.. tell us you're not going to pull that rug, cause you promised you wouldn't do that!" (said mostly from all the suspicion due to all these competing products being under the same roof, the slow dev, the shufflings, the abscence, etc..) Nevertheless, by then it must have been super-obvious what people wanted . (or absolutely did -not- want) So if the decision was recent, how can that decision be made despite the overwhelming feedback of what people wanted (or absolutely didn't want) if the company is all about what customers need/want (?) If the proposed package was actually on par on the most needed aspects, it -could- (perhaps) have been more easily understood. (Maya 2017? with Bifrost 3.0, Passes, and reviewed workflows?) But as things are now, and until things change (more substantially), we want Softimage, and we would switch to Maya when it would become better for us, because if we would switch, it would be because it would be better for us. And not because the company regrets to inform us that the rug has been pulled. The company got it's technology and the human resources, so why not let us stay until we feel good and ready to move. (?) PS; On 03/18/14 11:21, Maurice Patel wrote: At the time this statement was made we did not even have any plans for MayaLT. Speaking of MayaLT.. it reminded me of this post from late 2012; Here is a quote from Graphics Speak on December 17, 2012 __________________ ... For years the M&E division has been focused on the high-end of the market. It is time for us to democratize the market for creative media products the way Autodesk changed the CAD industry 30 years ago. Our new goal at M&E is to continue to serve the top market, but also to expand. … _________ .. so if you consider the following  ( quotes from Modo forum ) _________ Maya is powerful and deep, but since in it’s history, it was aimed towards big production teams Developed openness and programmability, so that studios could integrate their proprietary code, end up with a base for their pipelines, and build-up tools for "rapid productivity" of their own. - - - - - - - - - - - - >From T4D the thing I find silly, is smaller studio's using Maya. YES Maya is used in feature films and by the big legends of the 3d industry, BUT those same people DON'T USE STANDARD MAYA. Here we had a few Maya gurus at the start, and we ran Maya as prime tool for a while, and there was alot of custom tools even for simple stuff made by those guys,. But we are small, and when they moved on, the rest of us just used SI more and more. It ( IMO ) is easier to work-out how it all works and get it done ( and that's without ICE ) - - - - - - - - - - - Google ANY discussion anywhere, talking about Maya & Softimage and you would find that people having extensively or even slightly worked on both, CONSISTENTLY favour SI for smaller setups, and that remains largely undisputed … If there is more focus towards smaller shops generally in the industry, (Autodesk & others) It seems giving Softimage a second look, might be a good thing for the industry, just as much as for Autodesk. Or I would suspect something like the quickly evolving Modo (fast, easy & effective) would eventually fill that void & win-over the smaller-shop market. That’s if SI remains exclusively seen as a temporary ICE Centric accessory while waiting for MayaFX to come along, .. or.. that a reduced price/slimed-down Maya Utility Truck would successfully be (re)marketed as a reliable friendly VFX Sedan. In any event, nice to see some SI Love! :)   (for the triggerfish story) _____ while since then a few (added) things were indeed more friendly, Talk about not wanting to see... All this effort in a stipped Maya. Greg talked about the MSWord parperclip oversimplifications.. could MayaLT (or other forthcoming "simplifications" in Maya) genuinely compensate for SI straightforwardness? That would personally strike me as yet another "if". Again, I'm sorry to respectfully dissaprove, as many others I'm sure, the goal is not to be difficult, but to simply to -respectfully dissaprove- considering the circumstances. Thx