+1 on what Jeffrey said. Regarding whether this is a good thing to do now or not, I say it is (and I think you know that isn't easy for me if you my position on this entire situation).
Hey, at least they ARE asking! Better late than never. Should it have been done earlier? Yes. Should we never even have to be doing this at all (meaning not EOL for Softimage)? Of course! Should we even consider helping them with Maya when they killed Softimage? That is up to you, but really, there is no harm in it, it will help the Maya users out there (many who we are friends with or work with). Maybe Autodesk will actually learn something about how to respect its customers. Of this I am very doubtful, but again, no harm in trying to help. We have nothing to lose, if we *chose* to do this, except our time (and if we CHOSE to, we can't complain about that). Some of us may be required to use maya on a gig (God help me when that happens, but it may). If you want to look at it selfishly, you are helping yourself or your fellow Soft user when we or they are forced to use Maya down the road. It may suck when that happens, but if we help, it can suck LESS. Marketing could be: "Maya. Now with less suckage!" On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 1:00 PM, Jeffrey Dates <[email protected]> wrote: > As someone who uses both packages... > > I think Soft users underestimate Render Layers in Maya. Granted, the > horror stories would turn anyone off... but like anything there are the > workarounds to the minefield. #1 being, don't put materials on polygon > faces. ( hey, in soft you don't put them on polygon clusters either! ) > But other than that, they have been totally fine. ( other users have > different experiences I'm sure. ) But as a Soft user, I'm here to say.. > they're not AS BAD as you've heard. Room for improvement is needed of > course. > > I think the biggest single improvement that'll give Maya's render-layers > the "Softimage" workflow immediately, is Partitions, or RenderGroups. > That, along with a way to visualize them in the outliner. > > You can already make overrides, ( some might argue even easier in Maya.. ) > However, the issue is how to manage and quickly visualize the data. There > is no concept of how to easily see what you've done in a layer. ( other > than investigating objects and such ) Picking up a scene from another > artist in Maya could potentially be a nightmare if they work or organize > scenes differently than you. Where in Soft, you can easily at a glance > see what's been done. > > Anyway... Partitions, or RenderGroups Add them. > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 2:46 AM, Tenshi S. <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Exactly, they're here now, because they want to alienate us with "new" >> improvements thanks to "softimage users", why they don't listen Maya users >> in their proper channels. They've been asking a lot of improvements over a >> decade; but asking Softimage users, it's like they're trying quietly to >> drag us to Maya. >> >> It's nice to see people from Autodesk magically appear here, but it's not >> a good time to do that and for this. :) >> In fact, they'll need to be here to give us news about Softimage, trying >> to help us in other ways, saying at least the transition period it's been >> extended or something. >> >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:16 PM, Rob Wuijster <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hi Laurence, >>> >>> With all do respect to you personally, but I still don't understand why >>> these kind of questions are being asked -now-. >>> AD had SI for 5 years, and most of the SI team went to AD as well as >>> part of the aquisition. >>> >>> With all this recent talk about making Maya better and looking to >>> Softimage, one would expect that most of the good things in SI were already >>> planned to be integrated into Maya. >>> >>> You have the SI team there to tell you how stuff works. Pick up the good >>> things, and improve on the stuff that could be improved. Read up on years >>> of forum posts and mailinglist what is to be improved. >>> >>> So please don't insult us by finally popping in after the kill to see >>> how you can lure us in to start using Maya. >>> >>> my angry and depressed EURO 0.02 as start of the weekend. >>> >>> Rob >>> >>> \/-------------\/----------------\/ >>> >>> On 21-3-2014 19:05, Laurence Cymet wrote: >>> >>> Hello, >>> >>> My name is Laurence Cymet, I am the product manager for lighting and >>> rendering on Maya. In the past few weeks I've been out to talk to many >>> Softimage customers, and I can certainly understand your frustration with >>> the move to EOL Softimage, so we're doing what we can to improve things. >>> >>> I am not here to try and sell anyone on Maya. My goal is to improve Maya, >>> so if you are interested in discussing what we need to do to make it a >>> better place to render for you, feel free to post here or email me directly >>> at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> >>> <[email protected]> >>> >>> Also - I will happily answer any questions I can about rendering in Maya, >>> don't hesitate to ask. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Laurence Cymet >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- >>> No virus found in this message. >>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >>> Version: 2014.0.4336 / Virus Database: 3722/7228 - Release Date: 03/21/14 >>> >>> >>> >> > -- Perry Harovas Animation and Visual Effects http://www.TheAfterImage.com <http://www.theafterimage.com/> -25 Years Experience -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)
