Bye bye, SoftImage...

[vlado]

The integration of Mental Ray into the XSI UI was, and is, amazing. Far, far, far better than any other renderer I've seen integrated into a 3D package and that includes Vray. The whole Q (Render Region) thing was pretty revolutionary and the way that MR was used properly throughout the entire UI was superb.

Yes, and they completely neglected the part where people might want to use other renderers. From the three packages, Softimage has been the most difficult to integrate into and it was obvious that it was not really designed for it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[alexyork]

Yes, and they completely neglected the part where people might want to use other renderers. From the three packages, Softimage has been the most difficult to integrate into and it was obvious that it was not really designed for it.

Best regards,
Vlado

This is very true, although I think that might have been to the benefit of XSI itself. MR's integration might not have been so good had it been more opened up to 3rd party renderers like Vray. MR's integration in max is kind of ok but nothing like XSI's was, perhaps for this reason. Swings and roundabouts.

[trixian]

TBH, the best parts of Softimage were the referencing system, the "file structure" and its meta-data making for easy attribute transfers, and the animation/rigging tools.....oh and the possibility to configure one viewport to view the mesh pre-skinning, and one while skinning in t-pose and a third with full deformation on the mesh. Made character work a lot easier. My guess is these features are not ever going to be transfered to any other AD package (Maya, forget about Max...)
The whole ICE thing was pretty awesome too, but hopefully they are salvaging the concept and duct-taping it onto Maya at least. We won't be seeing this in Max at all either I guess.

PS: I hate Autodesk

[squintnic]

3dmax will die soon or be reduced to a way to render disgusting bloated revit files IMO

[yyk]

I don't know if XSI is cool, amazing, better than Max or Maya. But the Autodesk's behavior isn't correct at all! You arn't able to support all these three amazing software (Max, Maya, XSI)? Ok, sell something.
Now, XSI user are really taken to the ass. Thare are a big/middle company with strong XSI pipeline, so, what so the do now?
The software isn't ugly or very old. Now realistic justification, reason to kill XSI.

You are expecting a software company to sell their product that has the potential to directly compete with their other products?

I didn't even know XSI existed anymore!

[flino2004]

Autodesk is a dictator and the way they work is trying to buy everything under sun relate with their field and kill them... same scheme that Rockefeller used many years ago to control everything. who is going to be the next victim?

[yyk]

Autodesk is a dictator and the way they work is trying to buy everything under sun relate with their field and kill them... same scheme that Rockefeller used many years ago to control everything. who is going to be the next victim?

Wise words from a guy whose signature says "show me the money"!

[flino2004]

Do you work for free? I want to see the money before starting a job.

[yyk]

Do you work for free? I want to see the money before starting a job.

Yes and when Autodesk thinks the same and makes, in my opinion, pretty logical conclusions somehow their actions have "victims".

[flino2004]

I don't think that Autodesk had the intention to keep it alive at first place.... What they do is expansion.... Take the users, taking down the competition and after that simplify what they have..... They don't want to have something similar to compete agains their self.

If you read the history of Autodesk you will see that what they are doing is nothing new for them.
If I remember well Autodesk was founded by softimage ex sales director.... They acquired a lot companies thru the years and killed many applications.

[thablanch]

Sorry for all the Softimage users.. But I see this as a business decision.. In no way a decision related to the quality of the product and/or the user base.
Autodesk Paid 35M$ for something that a decade before worth 258M$.. and they are still shutting it down. I Think that if they would make a little more money out of it with reasonable development costs, they would keep it alive.

I do not think it is a question of controlling everything, it is only a question of making a buck on something.

Every business works in the same way..

[thablanch]

Oh yhea.. and others also are trying to make a buck out of this...

https://www.lightwave3d.com/crossgrade_promo/

[Alan Iglesias]

... But on the bright side, I am very much relieved - we've spent much more money on developing V-Ray for Softimage than we ever got out of it. It would be good to put our developers on more profitable projects.

Best regards,
Vlado

Good to hear.

Not defending Adesk, but at least they are doing this:

"We understand that you will now need time to re-evaluate your production capabilities. To help you, we are offering Autodesk Softimage Subscription customers special no-cost options to migrate to either Maya or 3ds Max software while continuing to use Softimage in production"

Perhaps the Chaos Group would let Vray for SI customers migrate as well...

-Alan

[vlado]

Perhaps the Chaos Group would let Vray for SI customers migrate as well...

We do offer a free cross-grade to V-Ray for Maya or V-Ray for 3ds Max:
http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...611#post614611

Best regards,
Vlado

[Alan Iglesias]

We do offer a free cross-grade to V-Ray for Maya or V-Ray for 3ds Max:
http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...611#post614611

Best regards,
Vlado

Nice!

-Alan