Hi Chris, My appreciation of the effort you took to write all that, and the thought that must have went into it is considerable. I truly and honestly appreciate that you did that, and I look forward (more than before) to your second part where you explain why Autodesk can't just keep Softimage around (and perhaps why doing that is diffeent than doing that with Toxik and MatchMover).
Does this solve everything? Does this make me a renewed Autodesk customer? No, but your email really helped a lot with regards to understanding the lay of the land as it has been leading up to now. One other thing that would be helpful is: Why Softimage was not marketed. Yes, you can blame (or partially hold as culpable) Microsoft and Avid as to the small sales numbers for Softimage, but after Autodesk acquired it, in many ways the marketing was FURTHER reduced. This, I believe, leads mostly towards the mindset people have that either Autodesk was trying to kill it, or Autodesk didn't care if it died, or Autodesk only bought it for the technology and if it sold that was icing, but that it wasn't a goal. Those things directly come from a couple things: Lack of Softimage appearing on the home page, lack of advertising, lack of features while under Autodesk. I would be interested in knowing how you respond to that. Again, much appreciated, Chris. Perry On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Emilio Hernandez <emi...@e-roja.com>wrote: > Thank you for taking the time to response Chris. > > This is all clear to me as I bought a couple of Digital Studio stations at > version 2.0 while it was still Microsoft. If it wasn't because they were > dependable on the Intergraph video board that eventually got fried after 15 > years, and they lacked of HD support, I will still be using them. Those > turnkey systems were the ones that kept me out of the Inferno, Smoke, etc. > solutions more expensive by far than the DS solution. > > I agree that Avid did not a lousy but a terrible job with the Softimage > asset as they were running like headless chickens towards anywhere but > where the useres needed, and that is when Final Cut got in. > > I understand where Autodesk is going, nothing I can do about it, even > though I tried far beyond this list in ways that this is not the arena to > talk about it. > > Still in your response I can't read the answer of: > > Why Autodesk is not willing to continue ship Softimage 2015, unsupported > with an open SDK along Maya/MAX 2020? > > Maurice said because the inherent costs. You answered because of Autodesk > wants to focuse in developing Bifrost or whatever new technology Autodesk > is bringing. > > What is that inherent cost? > > Thinking of some... > > 1. Packaging Softimage into the Maya/MAX download, self extract for each > new year release. > 2. Server space for holding a larger file. > 3. Keep the SI online help file > > In which way Softimage will drive your development resources away from > focusing into the new tools if there is no one that moves a single line of > code? > > I not doing so, you started to loose clients already... > > So what is costing more? > > At this moment seeing several users of Softimage becoming ex-clients of > Autodesk at a faster pace, even faster than I think Autodesk expected. I > seriously would reconsider the no Softimage policy after April 2016. > > Two years of uncertainty of what will be Autodesk decision... It is a > long time. By then, I don't think that you will be able to get back what > you are loosing now. > > But anyway, this is thing how they are now. And that is the decision of > Autodesk on Softimage for now. > > To bad to end in an "Only time will tell..." statement. > > Thank you again. > > > > > -- Perry Harovas Animation and Visual Effects http://www.TheAfterImage.com <http://www.theafterimage.com/> -25 Years Experience -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)
