Development after "retirement"

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Hirazi Blue
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Development after "retirement"

Post by Hirazi Blue » 02 Apr 2014, 12:37

After the official retirement of Softimage, keeping the product more or less alive has become a task that solely rests on the remaining user base. Some have expressed the hope that 3rd party developers, commercial or otherwise, will remain active for Softimage, but keeping them “on board” won’t be all that easy, especially where commercial developers are concerned.
The Softimage user community should start to think about ways to prolong the life of Softimage by providing a good environment for developers to continue working in. And the developers should probably open a more direct dialogue with the users to figure out, what is needed/wanted most and what is actually doable/feasible from the POV of developers.
I am starting this thread to open the dialogue on what should/could happen to prolong the life of our “retired” software in light of hopefully ongoing development. If you have any ideas on this, please feel free to share. This is not meant as a thread to throw feature requests at, mind, this is intended as a way to get some ideas how this user base as a whole can carry on.
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

Bullit
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Re: Development after "retirement"

Post by Bullit » 03 Apr 2014, 00:03

I am pining some hopes in Fabric Engine V2 for more fundamental stuff.

Now looking at competition things that would help:

A Sparta/Chronosculpt like point cloud editor even if something can be already done with current ICE https://vimeo.com/58248152

Auto Retopology tool, i don't know if emPolygonizer can be expanded to this.

I haven't the faintest idea if OpenSubDivisions can be brought to Softimage.


I think only looking at what would be the future some years from now we can get an idea of what we want.

Softimage 2015 will come with ICE attribute editor with i am curious about.

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Re: Development after "retirement"

Post by angus_davidson » 03 Apr 2014, 05:36

This is pretty much the golden question.

Eventually the commercial plugin makers will have to diversify to remain solvent. Some already have started this process or are being developed in a way that software agnostic.

As much as its currently is put down for not being ICE 2.0 Bifrost does have the potential to be a replacement in say 3 years time. Especially if development is influenced by ICE 1.0 users. Lets for arguments sake assume that it can be the case where does that leave Softimage?

By then most folks will be either be on 2015 Service pack x. You can no longer buy it so it pretty much in stasis from then.

To me Studios using FE have the greatest potential to help here. Tools that get developed if released to the Userbase will have a big influence on the longevity of Softimage. It will also help people migrate when the time comes.

Similarly Plugin developers can help by making the tools consistent in all applications. Folks using Arnold for instance know that while the tech is the same the experience is very different in Maya and Softimage. (so much better in softimage).
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Bullit
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Re: Development after "retirement"

Post by Bullit » 03 Apr 2014, 10:34

No one can predicts what will be in 3 years. Are you sure that Bifrost is here in 3 years? Maybe Autodesk would already have sold M&E and game engines will take over big parts of content creation. Maybe Autodesk buys a game engine and kicks Maya to corner, puts Bifrost in game engine trying to fight a much more friendly Houdini and a Belnder that already have a nodal content interface.

Hey i will just make a post about this.

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Re: Development after "retirement"

Post by angus_davidson » 03 Apr 2014, 10:57

I did specifically say lets assume, as in Mayas best case scenario ;) If its not then folks will just stick to softimage.
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