Cool work! I'd like to comment on Jean-Louis' idea...
There clearly are benefits for studios to keep Softimage in their tool box a few more years, as expressed by many users here. And I hope to see it happen instead of watching this community burst. But for those willing to go that route, *collaboration* must play its part in order to - stop the whining. - gather numbers: how many active seats? Can we borrow/buy licenses from other studios? Share assets. - define what's needed to keep SI up-to-date in the market as long as possible. - and like Jean-Louis suggests, gather money and put developers under contract. I have no idea if 750,000$/year is possible (i doubt) but I'd put it all in the hands of *Fabric Engine*. They represent your best way to extend the functionality of your beloved software as well as make your investment fructify beyond Softimage's *real*lifespan. Because it *will* become obsolete one day or the other. If Fabric Engine are interested in the amount brought to the table, then you can figure-out a plan that will be beneficial to both parties for the upcoming years. Imagine hiring someone like Eric Mootz full time to develop both FE and SI. But in order for this to work properly, people will need to organize even if this means adopting some minimally legal convention, obviously depending how far you want the collaboration to go. This tightly knit community has always played a major role in the success of Softimage and the studios exploiting it. For me, the only way for those studios to continue to excel (read survive) despite the circumstances is to build stronger links between each other and make clever moves. my 0.02c On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 7:57 PM, Jean-Louis Billard <jean-lo...@photon3.com>wrote: > Hi Peter, > > No - subscription hasn't gotten us much in the past few years. > I would, however, be happy to put the subscription money into funding a > dev team, as was suggested in another thread. > > For the sake of argument: if there were just the equivalent of 1000 > Softimage licenses worldwide for which individuals or companies were > prepared, like me, to pay their subscription money to keep developing > Softimage addons/tools/plugins, you would have (assuming $750/year/seat) > $750000/year, which is 7 or 8 full time developers + administrative costs. > > Makes you think... > > > > Jean-Louis > > > > On 20 Mar 2014, at 00:18, pete...@skynet.be wrote: > > It's a good lesson for the future - if paying subscription does not > guarantee the survival and future of a software - do you really want to pay > subscription? > > > > >
