What about Softimaging Blender? SoftBlender?

[Hirazi Blue]

I wonder if Softimage might have fared better if its community had evangelized it more like Blender's community does and not let a great software languish in obscurity.

That's a very cheap shot...

[Shenan]

Sorry you took it that way, Hirazi. It was not meant to be a cheap shot at all. It was just an honest question, and something I alluded to in one of my earlier posts: how much responsibility does a software community bear if a great software isn't as successful in the market as it should be? Is it all down to the vendor only? It's just an honest curiosity I have, based on my perceptions over the years. I feel like XSI always seemed to be hidden from view in the general 3D websphere. It seems to me now that the more experienced users could have been shouting from the rooftops how great it was over the years, the way that they are doing now after Autodesk made the announcement. Is this a warning for all other software communities? My perception could, of course, be completely inaccurate. I haven't been a big participant in the Softimage community in the past, but more in the general communities like CG Talk.

I hope my question and perspective make more sense now.

[Hirazi Blue]

I understand what you're trying to say, but still: any implication that the whole of the Softimage community and/or more specifically this little si-community could have done more to prevent Softimages demise gets my goat. I was originally planning to write a lengthy reply about the communities inner workings where it related to the company but let's just say Autodesk/Softimage never was very good at customer relations and this didn't help motivate everyone equally to evangelizing Softimage. But in the almost five years this si-community is around, we still managed to do a fair amount of evangelizing, whenever we took a break from all the incessant alleged "fear mongering".


PS We made mistakes too, BTW, no doubt!
I could even list quite a few, but I'd rather declare it "beside the point" for now...
;)

[waffleface]

I've looked into transitioning to Blender (as well as GIMP for 2D) in the past, because I anticipated this very thing would happen sooner or later.

My results were pretty bad, I tried this idea a few times at fairly extended lengths, and I'm not going to try it again.

I think all you need to do, to come to a similar conclusion, is to try the Material Editor system(s) (plural because Blender has 2 fairly incompatible material systems, one traditional/oldschool and one newer nodal based, for Making materials and they are both awful compared to what Softimage offers). (to the inevitable offended to what I said above, save your breathe, the above suggestion will speak for itself to nearly any experienced Softimage user who attempts the above task)

I'd make a longer list of similar such issues but that one right there was more than enough to stop the entire idea dead in its tracks for me, go see for yourself.

[Draise]

So, speaking of Softimaging Blender, I decided to do it myself. Next week, on my free time, I will port Softimage's Keyboard Mapping as a standalone Windows and Linux app for Blender, for free. Just because it's that easy to do and pretty effective in attracting newcomers so less of them would lose their time with Autodesk Maya.

I would love this!!!!!
PLEASE DO THIS.

I have started using Blender, and with the future hopes of a plugin called Flakes (ICE replacement), it has slow progress, but it's progressing. I would say the community is very... yeah, probably... divided, or too hardcore and zealous. But I like it's sculpting, more than Mudbox capable (multires mesh is super handy)... it has it's short comings I've found already - (how on earth do you hide polygons or create clusters?!). I also found baking texures to be very difficult, and it all is possible in Blender, it's just a high learning curve to master.

As an open-source product, Blender, I agree.. is quite a feat and probably the most successful as an opensource product, but really it's success is still boiled down to many factors.... it is functional, just not optimal from what I see.


I am no experienced user of SI, but my boss used it since it was pre-installed on Silicon Graphics machines and THE app some 20 years ago.

But yeah, part is good marketing from the owner and distributor, the other is effective marketing, the fanbase and how it is received or shared... no-one's fault. I like what is happening now though, hundreds of emails, new websites, new content shared, publicity for SI and ultimately Autodesk, and if they are smart, they can further earn the trust of everyone by saying "Oh woops, our bad, we shouldn't have done that, we will keep selling it and developing it, we listen to our users who are passionate about our products." and everyone could win. Actually.. learn that Cinderella is by far the coolest of the three sisters - the one the rich prince is looking for.


But yes, human have to learn to work together, push the ideal or product forward over one's ego and "right" of how things should be done... the only right we have is to create... I suppose.

[Mathaeus]

how much responsibility does a software community bear if a great software isn't as successful in the market as it should be? Is it all down to the vendor only? It's just an honest curiosity I have, based on my perceptions over the years. I feel like XSI always seemed to be hidden from view in the general 3D websphere. It seems to me now that the more experienced users could have been shouting from the rooftops how great it was over the years, the way that they are doing now after Autodesk made the announcement.

Well I wouldn't go in this way. I think you're overestimating a 'community role'. In short, if someone is agile to much in nice words, people could take the entire story as some fanatic sect - there is attention, probably a few followers more, that's all. Counter productive, in many cases.
Regarding Blender, actually, real support is small. We all know for number of 4k euros monthly from donations - that's comparable to 40-50 people on AD subscription - so, in numbers, SI always been supported much much better than Blender. Perhaps better than Houdini, too. Criteria for software survival under AD, that's another story.

For another small story there, Blender is not the first popular 3d. In 90's open-source renderer called POV-Ray had a lot of supporters, users, books, CDs, own competitions... I've used it even after I got XSI 4, Pov-Ray's radiosity was somehow more predictable than early Mental Ray. If this means something, one of contributors in these times, was a chief of Solid Angle.
But team of volunteers never had a power to create a multi threaded version. It never died, but it vanished through the years. Funny enough, some people are still present on forums, praising the software, last updated before ten years.
Today, I'm afraid Blender has similar problem, with old OpenGl and structure. I only hope they will be able to overcome this.

[waffleface]

So, speaking of Softimaging Blender, I decided to do it myself. Next week, on my free time, I will port Softimage's Keyboard Mapping as a standalone Windows and Linux app for Blender, for free. Just because it's that easy to do........

Just an fyi, you might be biting off a bigger task than you might think. I've tried this before, and while I do believe its possible, there are an amazing amount of subtleties to look out for, simply like how softimage Shift/Control/Alt in combination/variations to add/subtract selections in the view-port and so on and so far, is radically different from how Blender works by default (or at least was when i tried)....

Also, things like Softimage sticky keys, and the the mouse's combined interaction in conjunction with holding/releasing keys for, it's completely different from how Blender works and you end up with semi-similar hot-keys for the basic tool but in the end the tools themselves in their interactions behave completely differently and you end up with a different workflow and a ton of extra clicks compared to softimage and not what a soft user is going to expect or be at all happy with. I've tried this, good luck, but I suspect greatly you are over promising, I'd scale back the expectations quite a bit before anyone gets disappointed or you find yourself buried in work you didn't anticipate.

I imagine you already fully understand Softimage's hotkey interface/interactions/sticky keys/etc., and have the whole thing (in it's core at least), memorized by heart as all great soft modelers/animators/etc. users have. If not, you might want to skip this entirely because your just going to do a copy paste job of the key and it's most similar tool and it's not going to feel anything like softimage as it will miss all of the subtlety.

For another great example, holding some keys or just activating them, like the parent key which is / has completely different interaction effects if you exit the command with a left, middle or right click (left child, middle parent, right cancel). There are so many subtle, but brilliantly thought out interactions and combinations like this, that if you don't fully know the software inside and out, you are not going to produce anything useful to an experienced softimage user. However, if you can prove me wrong, I'll buy you a bottle of liquor or a video game or simillar such gift of your choice ($60-ish range). Good luck, prove me wrong

[Shenan]

I understand what you're trying to say, but still: any implication that the whole of the Softimage community and/or more specifically this little si-community could have done more to prevent Softimages demise gets my goat. I was originally planning to write a lengthy reply about the communities inner workings where it related to the company but let's just say Autodesk/Softimage never was very good at customer relations and this didn't help motivate everyone equally to evangelizing Softimage. But in the almost five years this si-community is around, we still managed to do a fair amount of evangelizing, whenever we took a break from all the incessant alleged "fear mongering".


PS We made mistakes too, BTW, no doubt!
I could even list quite a few, but I'd rather declare it "beside the point" for now...
;)

Just to be clear, I in no way meant to imply that si-community itself had anything to do with it. I only started visiting here a few days ago, so I wouldn't know anyway. I meant the broader community that uses Softimage. For instance, it was weird to just discover recently that most of the Softimage community action apparently happens on the mailing list. A mailing list being generally off the web in my opinion makes it as good as invisible. But I'm not picking on them either. It's just a very general concept that I'm talking about. I can also see your point about people feeling little incentive to evangelize after being purchased by Autodesk. Anyway, chalk my observations up to a case of "hindsight is always 20/20". There likely wasn't much that the community could have done, especially if Autodesk didn't appear to be interested in promoting Softimage to the full extent possible.

[iamVFX]

So, speaking of Softimaging Blender, I decided to do it myself. Next week, on my free time, I will port Softimage's Keyboard Mapping as a standalone Windows and Linux app for Blender, for free. Just because it's that easy to do and pretty effective in attracting newcomers so less of them would lose their time with Autodesk Maya.

I would love this!!!!!
PLEASE DO THIS.

Yep, already started today.

Just an fyi, you might be biting off a bigger task than you might think. I've tried this before, and while I do believe its possible, their a an amazing amount of subtleties to look out for, simply like how softimage Shift/Control/Alt and combination/variation to add/subtract selections in the view-port and so on and so far, is radically different from how Blender works by default.... Also, thinks like Softimage sticky keys, and the the mouse interaction in conjunction with holding/releasing keys for quickly adding edge loops, it's completely different from how Blender works and you end up with semi-similar hot-keys but in the end the tools behave completely differently and you end up with a different workflow and a ton of extra clicks compared to softimage. I've tried this, good luck, but I suspect greatly you are over promising, I'd scale back the expectations a bit before anyone gets disappointed.

I wouldn't do that, 1:1 key mapping is simply not possible due to different workflows packages have, what I'm doing simply is a visual way of assigning hotkeys for Blender, like in Softimage, that's it. By the way, I remember had a ton of extra clicks in Softimage, I always solve that with custom scripts on shortcuts, pretty sure Blender can do that too

[waffleface]

(delete)Good luck, if you can come close to really cloning - it's like I said, I'll get you a gift as I described above, it would be very much appreciated. I won't get you a gift if the tools aren't behaving mostly as they do in soft - interaction wise but that should be clear and obvious: with the interface you make and say is easy to do though, just having similar keys is easy, the interaction part in all of its intracacies and varaitions just depending which mouse button you press, when/where you release mouse, what happens when you let go of a key (returning automatically to a previous tool/aka sticky keys, etc. etc.), Best of luck. If you pull it off you got a nice gift coming, my treat.(delete)


....

I re-read your last message and i understand it better now sorry for the above: """1:1 key mapping is simply not possible due to different workflows packages have, what I'm doing simply is a visual way of assigning hotkeys for Blender, like in Softimage, that's it...."""" I didn't get that the first time.

yeah no gift for that, but thanks. Honestly though, I think that's just going to turn people off the idea of Blender faster, than help because they are going to see radical differences of the interaction system immediately and at that point you might as well just learn new keys. If your going to do it at all, do it in full, a full propper interaction clone, you'll learn quite a bit about why people love Softimage so much and I have a gift if you can do or come close to exactly that ;)

[Shenan]

Regarding Softimage keys in Blender, if they've done it for Max and Maya, it would just take someone to volunteer to do something similar for Softimage. This is where volunteers can help. Here's a message from Ton where he was looking for volunteers to maintain the Max and Maya presets: http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-c ... 40003.html.

It would be quite a bit of work, like someone has already mentioned, and would probably require experience in both programs to understand certain subtleties. Also, like someone else mentioned, because the programs are fundamentally different you cannot expect to completely replicate the experience, so key presets may only serve as a temporary crutch or training wheels until you get familiar with Blender. Either that, or perhaps if you only use Blender very infrequently, the presets could help you stay up to speed when you keep using another software as your primary one.

[waffleface]

To do it properly will require actual coding not just key re-mappping, and more to the point it will actually require re-coding parts of blender for some many of the basic (as well as advanced) ways in which the tools actually work, if you want it at all similar. This will result in an immediate and unfortunate fork ( I strongly suspect ).

If there is a way to do it without a fork or breaking compatibility with someone using a non-altered blender UI fine, but I suspect there isn't, and you will never retain the original subtlety of the softimage interface just by trying to mirror/clone as close as possible the keymap on it's own, it's nearly a wasted effort to do it, but maybe some small help or temporary crutch as you say. On the other hand, then your learning a whole new software, with completely different way of interacting, and just getting a crutch that doesn't work like you quite expect it, and fail to learn the default hotkey scheme that would make it easier to work with other native blender users.

I've looked down this road before, but for now, I'll leave it at that. Good luck, I shall pester you folks no more unless I am called upon

[iamVFX]

I imagine you already fully understand Softimage's hotkey interface/interactions/sticky keys/etc., and have the whole thing (in it's core at least), memorized by heart as all great soft modelers/animators/etc. users have. If not, you might want to skip this entirely because your just going to do a copy paste job of the key and it's most similar tool and it's not going to feel anything like softimage as it will miss all of the subtlety.

I think I was not using all those features, my experience with Softimage was a little different from what most of you probably had. It was basically "lets just remove all keys assigned for me by default and reassign them as I like, each one at a time". As simple as that. You pressing the key, you get the tool. You pressing another combination of keys - another tool is enabled, no hidden states or fancy logic, just enogh to get work done.

To do it properly will require actual coding not just key re-mappping, and more to the point it will actually require re-coding parts of blender for some many of the basic (as well as advanced) ways in which the tools actually work, if you want it at all similar. This will result in an immediate and unfortunate fork ( I strongly suspect ).

That's why I wouldn't do that. Otherwise, I would anounce like "Hey, I want to make Blendimage, I forked it and will spend a few years on redesigning workflow of every tool behaviour available in Blender."

[waffleface]

Fair enough, thanks for any current or future efforts though, and best of luck to Blender.

And yeah, completeeeeetly different experiences. I moved from 3D Max, to Maya and finally to Softimage over a 10+ year stretch and I've been in Soft for a bit more than 6 years. The first time I tried to learn it on my own, and then for a brief few weeks at my second school/college, I did it just like you said above, with my own custom keys, then I sat down with a teacher and he was open to me doing it either way but when he showed me what I would be missing out on I was blown away, so I learned the default setup and it's 'fucking amazing' and its still better than anything out there today, Max and Maya included.

cheers to you, thank you very much for pitching in, it's appreciated, best regards to you

[iamVFX]

It would be quite a bit of work, like someone has already mentioned, and would probably require experience in both programs to understand certain subtleties. Also, like someone else mentioned, because the programs are fundamentally different you cannot expect to completely replicate the experience, so key presets may only serve as a temporary crutch or training wheels until you get familiar with Blender. Either that, or perhaps if you only use Blender very infrequently, the presets could help you stay up to speed when you keep using another software as your primary one.

Exactly. But the current process of assigning keys is old fashioned "here's a list of all possible hotkeys, they're have names, but not that much else, so go figure out what they do." It's not different in other DCC's, Softimage was an unique exception, it's quite impressive how beautiful Keyboard Mapping window is, I would highly curious to know who did it.

waffleface, I think all of that can be defined as a next step, but I'm more concrete guy, you know, that kind of a person, framework first, goodies later

[dewf]

I wonder if Softimage might have fared better if its community had evangelized it more like Blender's community does and not let a great software languish in obscurity.

Yeah, that's really my overwhelming impression upon dipping my toes into the Blender world: these people are PASSIONATE about their software, and love sharing and helping each other out wherever possible. It's pretty inspiring, and goes a long way toward dissuading me from any objections I have to using the software.