I’ve been looking around at alternatives to Softimage and not having any luck. Modo have some great features, but the interface is just crap. There are way too many different layouts for things that should mostly be done in one or maybe 2 different layouts. Things like snapping rotations (or snapping in general) seem to require you to click checkboxes or be enabled in other menus where in Softimage, you can just hold down a modifier key to enable most of those functions without dropping your current tool. Modo seems full of tons of one use tools, whereas in Softimage I have a few tools that I use most of the time that cover 99% of what I need to do. I was looking up rigging in Modo the other day and it’s a mess. After you draw out you bones you have to go in manually and correct all your individual joint rotations so they work correctly. In the amount of time the guy built a basic spine I could have had the entire character skeleton done in Softimage with working IK. After massing with Modo for a short time I usually give up in frustration at the terribly slow and clunky interface. Sure I could probably get used to it in time and be productive, but why should I have to settle for such and inferior and slow UI and workflow. The whole layer based approach to modeling makes me want to punch kittens.
I also tried Blender which seems to get a lot of praise because it is free and has all these gee-whiz features, but again, the interface on that program is horrid. Sure it’s better than the old one, but it’s still terrible. Also, all the development seems to be on these qee-whiz features and some things like beveling are mostly useless. This is one of the problems with open source programs, no one wants to write the simple mundane features, they would rather write the big flashy features so they can brag about them and the simple tools get left unfinished, on never even added. When I initially switched from lightwave to Softimage, everything was just amazing. The workflow was amazing, the documentation and tutorials were some of the best I’d ever seen at the time (these have both declined since Autodesk took over). Being able to get help with a tool by hitting F1 while in the tool and having the help open to the information for that tool was just amazing. Being able to crate basic tools or automat repetitive tasks by just copying from the history to the script editor was great and allowed me to do things I could never have done with my meager scripting abilities. All the things that make Softimage a great tool have been in there for years most of them since V4 or 5 which was the time I started using it. It’s just mind boggling that there really isn’t another program out there that even comes close to workflow and ease of use that Softimage has had for years. Where I work I do 3d animation part time, sometimes not using Softimage for weeks, and it’s great that Softimage has such a great interface where I can still find even the most rarely used tool without spending tons of time searching for it. With Modo I have trouble finding tools I used 5 minutes ago. So I’m probably going to be sticking with Softimage for quite some time. On a side note, it looks like Autodesk is putting even less effort into developing Mudbox than it is with Softimage, so I gave 3- Coat another try and I’m really impressed with it. I hated it when I used it several years ago, but now it blows Mudbox out of the water and is much, much more user friendly that the mess that is called Zbrush. I did some retopo work with 3d-coat recently and I like it much, much more than Topogun. I absolutely love the Voxel sculpting tools. So, it looks like Autodesk is going to be missing out on any future money from me. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Mirko Jankovic Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2014 6:06 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Torn Or stay with softimage till there is actualy something like it.. maybe next. Couple years On May 1, 2014 3:02 PM, "olivier jeannel" <olivier.jean...@noos.fr> wrote: You should go toward C4D since it's the one I'm planning to get into :) (and some houdini too) Read that message and obey. Le 01/05/2014 14:49, Chris Marshall a écrit : Complete generalist, working in tv, corporate, architecture, medical, FX, simulations etc etc. It's probably easier to say what I don't do, which is any character stuff, though I've done a bit of that too. Everything else is included. So software of choice in this scenario.....Softimage. Obvious alternative choice of software.....None As a small company with limited resources, we don't want to have to build a 'pipeline' of software, just to do what Softimage already does in one hit. I appreciate times are changing, but I'm not jumping until I'm sure which way to go. Nuffsed yo! ;-) lol
