Ramon wrote:
But it has happened before, hasn't it ? Remember back when people fled from the Lightwave camp en-mass to come over to the Softimage side ? People were really fed up with NewTek back then, and that, combined with the "3democracy" pricing, as well as the fact that XSI was the easiest-to-adapt-to package for an ex-Lightwaver, led to many people leaving and never looking back.
Well according to people I know in place where I'm live, actually no one "switched" from Lightwave to XSI. Many of them tried, but they didn't have a time or willing force to learn a completely new 3d app. Anyway there is area of freelancers, small shops, occasional users, employed people who still want 3d app for small gigs here and there.... where LW and Cinema 4d are tradition, and now Modo become a player. And no one of three AD apps. OK a few architects have the oldest possible Max and newer possible V-Ray . Love falls when it becomes to licensing schemes. Me to, I love Softimage and Max, but not enough to pay the offense called AD subscription ( it's NOT nearly the same as AVID subscription, when it comes to final price ). How wide is that area, really hard to say.
Imho only way to *really* put a new 3d app on the road, it's to find a job to utilize it, at least partially. Old XSI Foundation had a lot of advantages against any 3d app of this time, for any user. Fast subdivs, fast fCurve editor, ability to bake anything. Reliable text tool too. In these times, try to launch animation editor in Max with more than twenty fCurves, then wait some time for crash. Baking with Mental Ray and Maya, almost impossible.
Today I really don't see *any* advantage of Houdini in everyday life. I'd believe cheap version have sense only for learning, for people who want to be masters in big facilities, one day. If there is some optimist who want to be competitive with it in everyday task of small shop, who cares. It even can't be used "partially". On another side. Blender's simulation modules, each developed in it's own way, could be a nightmare for huge pipelines, but for small tasks, they just calling to be used. And simulation in Blender is easy to learn, exactly because every module offers all available options, in few hours you know would you use Blender or not.
An now that "when technology changes". That cloud computing thing, well that's total change, against habits, current technology, anything. By any logic, new era belongs to 3d app written to live on new technology, not to three old AD monsters. Let's say for archiviz, product shots or like, my bet is for some power variance of Google Sketchup. They already have more than enough of users, applied technology like V-Ray for Sketchup, rich owner. We will see, when "mother of all technology battles"
begin.
By the way, moving SI team to Maya, actually means "approval" of SI technology, ICE and so. Otherwise Maya and Max people would do anything, trying to marginalize SI and everything related to SI. Just like they were all the time. Now SI is a player, well in some strange way...
