I had some time away from the office today and while I was driving down the highway I started thinking about the situation and I'm no less pissed off today than I was when they made the announcement.
I've been watching as many Modo and Houdini intro videos, tutorials, etc., that I can find and what I've discovered is, neither of them can replace Softimage today. If you're a TD, then Houdini is probably a great way to go, but I'm another one of those people who don't like to script and want to keep things simple. Everything in Houdini seems to involve writing at least a little script here and there. Modo on the other hand looks very simple and straightforward, but it's lacking a LOT of power. I noticed in some demos on things like instancing, the viewport REALLY slowed down. It doesn't look like it's ready for prime-time when it comes to dense scenes. The way everything you do is "frozen" is crazy these days. I can't believe if you extrude along a curve the geometry doesn't stay stuck to the curve. Until Modo makes some major moves, I just think it's a step up from Lightwave. I'm leaving Maya out of the picture because in all honesty, Autodesk is totally delusional if they think Maya will be a good fit for small shops working on tight deadlines. Maybe in 5-8 years Maya will finally hit its stride, but I'm assuming by then the entire M&E division will have been shut down in favor of just licensing patents & technology. (seriously - mark my words - I am confident the entire M&E division will be shut down) I started thinking about most of the jobs I've done over the past few years, and I can honestly say I don't think I could do 90-95% of them in either Houdini or Modo as easily as in Softimage - if at all. So where I stand now is - totally screwed. I either have to put faith in The Foundry that they'll bring Modo up to Softimage's level in the next 2 years or I have to spend the next 2 years really digging in to Houdini to get myself up to speed again. In either case, I don't see a positive outcome. I'm not young and I have a family. I can't work all day, then spend the evenings learning new software. This BS about artists not putting all their eggs in one basket just is a slap in my face. I put my faith in Autodesk when they said "the future of Sofitmage is bright!" When I was told over and over again I was being a conspiracy nut when I said Autodesk was intentionally trying to destroy Softimage. Well, look where we are now. Murdering Softimage without having ANYTHING remotely close to replace it is like peeing on my face and telling me it's liquid sunshine! Maybe Autodesk is right. Maybe the all-in-one approach of Softimage is dead. Maybe I'm out of touch with how the world of animation & VFX works these days. In any event. I'm a very unhappy paying Autodesk customer. I do not feel like my money has gone to anything I paid for. -Paul
