EEEP! Autodesk buying Alias....

[DaForce]

whoa big news.

Was great by an Autodesk email this morning.

Who knows what the future will hold.. time will tell.

CCS:
I personally would like to see this nissan bentley cross breed you speak of

[Frances]

Wasn't Lightscape written as an addon or plugin to Max?

No. It was a standalone renderer that could import several file formats, one being 3ds.

If so, no big deal in sticking the two together with some gum and duct tape. Sticking 2 entirely different applications together would be like cutting a Nissan and a Bentley in half and welding them together. Wouldn't work so well.

I believe something very similar was accomplished by Red Green. If I recall correctly, it actually worked for a few minutes before something flew off and wrecked his garage.

[CCS]

Ha! I love that show!

[Da_elf]

quotes from autodesk
"...Alias’
products for the film industry provide customers with an additional tool for previsualization,
or modeling, animating and lighting realistic computer-generated
creatures....making it the top choice for platform-sensitive segments like high-end film,
whereas 3ds Max software is a Windows application that is used most often in
world-building for games."

looks like they are throwing in the towel for max. but i dont see how they can say maya has a good renderer. the integrated maya renderer sucks ass. mental ray sucks ass. everyone renders outside maya in their own renderman shaders. i think they need to open their eyes to what others are doing. just because they put sucky mental ray in max doesnt mean they should ignore works of art done using vray

i assume red green didnt use enough duck tape hehe.

my bro has been following the stock market. and autodesk stock went up 10 fold in the last 3 years and doubled in the last year alone.

[jujubee]

They wont throw in the towel for Max - its the most widely-used 3D application on the market.

[serge]

who's next
microdesk or autosoft ?

[rpc212]

Maya has joined the brotherhood!

Now Autodesk, make sure everyone stays happy or else there will be alot of angry customers.

[Adam H. Stewart]

What have the last Maya upgrades given us ?

I brought this up earlier, I am a max user who trained in maya, so I don't know the history that well, but it appears as though the lastest releases of max have been trying really hard. They have added alot of stuff since I started using in 4.2 I am not sure about Maya in the same time period.
You might argue that maya was a rockin programme back then so didn't need to add that much, but it was also a $14,000 programme at one stage, dropping by half or more overnight. Max has added alot of new features not to mention the renderings coming from max being second to none (thanks to Vray ) albeit buggy as hell, but it has been consistent, with upgrades and cost.
I really think Max is in a strong place - and has been in a strong place for the last 2-3 years, video game cut scene's are pretty much state of the art, and there is more money in video games then feature films, so if you where autodesk and had to drop one - which one would you drop ?

[priad]

[priad]

May be a future MAYAX!!!!!!!
In the next year they could buy ADOBE like adobe buy Macromedia and so on...........

[GALACTUS]

Any one placed an order for 3ds Maya ver1 yet ?

[percydaman]

the integrated maya renderer sucks ass. mental ray sucks ass

nearly every studio that doesn't use renderman, uses mentalray. I might not care for it, but trust me, alot of people dont think it sucks ass.

[Da_elf]

actually let me rephrase it. mental ray for XSI is great. but externaly its never really lived up to its XSI counterpart. and you need to be a programmer to get it there.

[dapeter]

I read a good post elsewhere (who knows where at this point) that was discussing how Maya doesn't really make Alias a lot of money (just like Max isn't Autodesk's cash cow). Basically he was saying that Alias created the demand for 3d software for studios... now all the studios that are going to use it have it already... so there wasn't much 'new sales' to be made. Probably why their upgrade path is so expensive.

I wouldn't be shocked to see a new three-tier program come out of this (Viz / Max / Maya) based on a single core, each with pared-down features. 3d's such a small market segment I can't imagine this being a bad thing - Autodesk and Alias were both starting to see the inroads of much less expensive software like Modo. Both Maya and Max have been pretty much feature after feature additions as opposed to total rewrites, it's about time for both programs to start fresh.

At least, if they make one product they should honor the history of both:

Discreekinetautoaliawave 3ds Powemayax Studio

[RErender]

I wouldn't be shocked to see a new three-tier program come out of this (Viz / Max / Maya) based on a single core

Yes, I agree this is a strong possibility. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out. If Max is targeted directly at games, I am afraid they will remove many tools that are essential to us in the ArchViz segment, tools that are not and probably will not ever be in Viz. I really do not want to have to learn Maya :P