Coping with the "depression"

General discussion about 3D DCC and other topics
FabricPaul
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by FabricPaul » 07 Apr 2014, 20:16

From the point of acquisition it took a while for Autodesk sales people to take over that part of the business - I think I was left to my own devices trying to sell Softimage until January 2009 (at which point I was moved to selling middleware until i shifted to product management a few months later). Meanwhile, the Autodesk sales people were not getting compensated on Softimage sales - the reality is that most sales people are coin operated: the compensation plan defines what they will and won't try to sell you.

So your experience was a product of the AD sales plan and reseller incentives. There was no strategy to 'suppress' XSI - but as of acquisition I think there were only two Softimage sales people not let go. That meant that everything was suborned to the regular AD sales people - with no training on how to sell XSI and no compensation if they did sell it. It's quite easy to see how that would pan out. If 30-40% of your salary is based on how much Maya/Max you sell, what are you going to do when someone inquires about XSI? You'll try and get them to buy Maya, even if that's not in the interests of the customer. If you're a reseller, then the margin you'll get from Autodesk in the next fiscal year is based on how much you manage to sell _this_ year - so again, if your agreed plan with AD doesn't include Softimage then it's not in your interests to sell it vs trying to convert someone to Maya.

Lastly - even after comp plans included Softimage sales, converting studios to Maya would pay a lot more than keeping them on XSI subscription. If you're trying to understand the motivation of sales people, follow the money.

All of this is to say that I saw no plan or directive to suppress Softimage sales, but the effect of Autodesk buying Softimage was to suppress Softimage sales due to how the business is structured. That's even before factoring in customers' concerns about long term viability of XSI in the Autodesk portfolio (which was a huge factor imo).

Pooby
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by Pooby » 07 Apr 2014, 23:04

Right from the moment xsi was bought out, all I heard was 'that's the end of xsi then' and ' they only bought it to kill it' .
I disputed this many a time both on forums and to individuals. I just couldn't concieve that such a genius-designed piece of software could suffer that fate.

The fact it came true is more than a coincidence.
A company policy that can be so easily and widely predicted is as close to proof that there is no guiding vision. It just follows the money with no respect for either the work that has gone into the software it buys or the people who's work is centred around using it.

I don't care if things have been said already. I'm in no mood to accept, lie down and shut up.

luceric
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by luceric » 08 Apr 2014, 00:54

Pooby wrote:Right from the moment xsi was bought out, all I heard was 'that's the end of xsi then' and ' they only bought it to kill it' .
I disputed this many a time both on forums and to individuals. I just couldn't concieve that such a genius-designed piece of software could suffer that fate.

The fact it came true is more than a coincidence.
A company policy that can be so easily and widely predicted is as close to proof that there is no guiding vision. It just follows the money with no respect for either the work that has gone into the software it buys or the people who's work is centred around using it.

I don't care if things have been said already. I'm in no mood to accept, lie down and shut up.
Sales was crippled even at Avid. But the acquisition and the subsequent gutting of the development team only happened because Marc Petit wanted to get developers for his (now failed) middleware project. It even said that this was the reason for the acquisition in the original press release. The first thing he did was move most of the developers away, which would necessarily result in development stalling.
Last edited by luceric on 11 Apr 2014, 00:31, edited 1 time in total.

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Tekano
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by Tekano » 08 Apr 2014, 01:41

luceric wrote: Don't get me wrong, I love the guys at Fabric, and it looks like an awesome product, but Marc is who killed Softimage.
:-? hmm often suspected this and wonder how that fits in with his funding with Fabric and thought NO.. surely..

its rotten what ever it is and whichever way you look at it.
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by EricTRocks » 08 Apr 2014, 03:33

Can anyone quote or verify that Marc Petit has any direct control over the direction development goes at Fabric? Otherwise, you're all just speculating and may be a bit questionable coming from certain parties.

If the thought that whoever invests money has control of the company then I'm in a good spot since 2 of the upper management at Hybride have invested as well. So I guess my request for Fabric to drop everything and clone Softimage will be getting finished shortly. Awesome.
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FabricPaul
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by FabricPaul » 08 Apr 2014, 03:52

Fabric was started 4 years ago, Marc was at AD until December 2012 and I'm pretty sure he was expecting to be there for the long haul. As far as Marc was concerned we were potential competition, and then when he moved on from AD, he felt that he wanted to invest his money into Fabric (and a few other companies) - and that investment was closed in Fall 2013 (as per our press releases you can find on our website). He has a non-executive role on our board as chairman - I am the CEO, the board approves the plan that I submit and then the founders execute that plan. I take serious issue with any implication of anything untoward here - I had one conversation with Marc in 2009 as a product manager in the games group, and the next time I spoke to him was in 2013 when he said he was interested in getting involved.

I agree with the depiction of the M&E strategy while Marc was running it, and I think Maurice posted a pretty accurate version of events on the mailing list i.e. the goal was to build a next-gen product through the games technology group, which ultimately didn't work out. Marc left Autodesk 15 months ago and the decision to kill Softimage was announced last month.

Anyway - if someone doesn't feel they can support Fabric because Marc is involved in the company as a director, that's obviously their choice. I'm responding here because of the implication that there was or is something 'rotten' about the investment relationship with Marc. There's not, and I find it quite offensive that someone just leaps to that conclusion. Startups (ideally) take investment from people with domain expertise and money - so that's what we did last year.

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Tekano
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by Tekano » 08 Apr 2014, 09:40

Hey Paul, sincerely, no offence to you or Fabric intended . the 'rotten' I am referring to here is the EOL decision and its strategy, what we are 'speculating' is either or not the intention to EOL was there as a dastardly plan in place or short sighted stupidity..?

short sighted stupidity.. get it? :D


also if what luc-Eric and others have hinted at is true and therefore Marc petit is implicated by the faulty decision he made with juggling Softimage devs. how do you feel having the 'Softimage killer' as chairman of the board..?
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Eugen
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by Eugen » 08 Apr 2014, 09:57

I just still cannot follow the decision making of Mr. Petit.

Ok, it basically was his ambition with project Skyline that drained resources and ultimately killed Softimage.
First, I wonder what a middleware had to do with a DCC application?
Are there so many similarities, market- and technology-wise, to justify that 'brain drain'?

Second, obviously Marc did not deem Softimage 'future-proof' enough, as he now does with Fabric Engine.
How come, since AD was after the Softimage tech obviously?
After all, he was also one of the masterminds behind XSI.
Copypaste from his LinkedIn profile:
"After the acquisition of Softimage by Microsoft, I moved to Montreal and took over product design and development, I initially focused on the port of Softimage | 3D to Windows NT, a "watershed event in the industry" at the time. Then, I led the design and development of Project Sumatra, that released as XSI 1.0 in may 2000, XSI is still considered to this day as the most modern 3D animation product."

Now is it the 'most modern' 3d animation product, or is it not?
Depends on when that statement was made, of course, but consciously reducing developing surely didn't help.


Unlucky, how XSI finally got crushed under the mangling wheels of ambition and commerce.

No harm done in taking his money now, though! May FE live and prosper!

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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by angus_davidson » 08 Apr 2014, 10:29

The saying

never attribute to malice what can better be explained by ineptitude or stupidity.

Is becoming more and more applicable to Autodesk.

If what Luceric says is true then there needs to be a definite accounting for by Autodesk. If Marc did move the developers away , when its always been said that wasn't the case then to me that falls into the misleading customers area. Here in Africa that is considered Company Fraud.

That might have stalled development (lets face it even with that Softimage is still out the box the best dcc product they have) to me the thing that killed Softimage was the aggressive lack of exposure and especially the difficulty with which one had to deal with trying to actually buy the product from a reseller. Some Resellers didn't even know that Softimage was an Autodesk product. I mean seriously WTF!

AD with its fingers in so many pies had the potential to market SI correctly, what they lacked was the will to do so. To me that can only be because there was no overall plan for Softimage. Can you imagine if the had put Softimage on the main page instead of Maya ;)

Personally I have no issues with Marc been an investor. Money is money after all.
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Eugen
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Re: Coping with the "depression"

Post by Eugen » 08 Apr 2014, 10:37

One more thing, which actually fits the topic -
Some weaknesses about Softimage just suck. I just had a stupid crash with modifying a curve plugged into a Loft operator. WTF?
Also, recently, I had tons of crashes with refmodels and pass switching, which almost drove me mad.

Then, why did Soft never have a simple mechanism for plugging/unplugging operator inputs, just like it should have been? Like this (sorry little) 'substitute input' command, but generalized.
C4D can do this via d&d, and Houdini, of course, too.

... the whole SDK BS, and why is there even something like hidden/internal clusters in the first place?

... the slow bugfixing cycle... at least at Autodesk. Don't know about the Avid times, but I think you needed to wield your wallet to quicken things, right?

Reported a bug to the Redshift guys yesterday, and Panos fixed it within hours(!), and put up another build.

Or look at Houdini - even if you download apprentice, you can report bugs, and have a good chance of getting things fixed very quickly.
The apprentice download page also is updated with every small point release.


Time of grief is mostly over. We loose good stuff, but also a good handful of nonsense.
For me, the road-signs now start with an H. A lot of good stuff awaits.

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Coping with the "depression"

Post by Hirazi Blue » 08 Apr 2014, 13:00

Without hearing from Marc Petit himself, I think this little discussion has reached a point where we're running in circles again. That he played an important role In the demise of Softimage has been crystal clear for a long time. Such was, after all, his role at M&E. If this was premeditated malice or managerial misjudgment shouldn't really concern us. Softimage is no more and pointing fingers (at individuals, no less) doesn't change that one bit. The question raised concerning his role at Fabric is a ridiculous one IMHO. Fabric should be judged as a product not by its investors/its board. It seems safe to assume Marc Petit didn't invest in Fabric to kill it. And he undoubtedly brings some skills on board a relatively new company can possibly benefit from. Asking the Fabric guys what they think of Marc Petit killing Softimage reeks of "guilt by association" and that is a line of thinking we should all avoid, IMHO.
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

luceric
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by luceric » 08 Apr 2014, 18:07

Eugen wrote:I just still cannot follow the decision making of Mr. Petit.

Ok, it basically was his ambition with project Skyline that drained resources and ultimately killed Softimage.
First, I wonder what a middleware had to do with a DCC application?
nothing indeed.. doing middleware is a new business model where you sell some library and then games makers pay you royalities per units of game sold. It is potentially a bilion dollar market if you can get it to work, and a lot more money than selling authoring tools., because the clients keeps paying for every new game they make. These days people look to the cloud for these new business models.

Marc petit has been trying to get into middleware for a very long time. that's why softimage bought The Motion Factory (an animation game middleware which is the tech behind "Behavior"_ and there was work to turn the dotXSI viewer into a middleware. XSI was called XSI in preparation for that plan, which fell out of favour at one point.
Eugen wrote: Second, obviously Marc did not deem Softimage 'future-proof' enough, as he now does with Fabric Engine.
How come, since AD was after the Softimage tech obviously?
I'm sure Marc thinks that Fabric is great tech, most people do. But the softimage acquisition wasn't about technology [EDIT:]it was about getting people to create new game tech
Last edited by luceric on 08 Apr 2014, 21:11, edited 1 time in total.

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FXDude
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Re: Fighting the depression

Post by FXDude » 08 Apr 2014, 19:28

luceric wrote:[...] But the softimage acquisition wasn't about technology

indeed.. (talking about technology suppression)

ICE alone (without considering many-many other things) serving as more than a testament to that.

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Mathaeus
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Re: Coping with the "depression"

Post by Mathaeus » 08 Apr 2014, 22:14

by the way, from what I've read, mr. Petit was strongly against subdivs in Softimage. Anyway to put it slightly on topic, just thinking about masters combo, for some future killer 3d app. Let's say, mr Petit for technology choice, mr Peebler of Modo for workflow, and finally mr Rosendaal for interface :D

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FXDude
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Re: Coping with the "depression"

Post by FXDude » 08 Apr 2014, 22:48

Mathaeus wrote:by the way, from what I've read, mr. Petit was strongly against subdivs in Softimage.
I can personally confirm that. He's okay, but more and more did I wish he'd stayed at TDI,
to then go directly to Maya or wherever else.

Then the very first V1.0 might have had Subd's, (affecting first impressions instead of coming at 1.5)
and perhaps AD wouldn't have had so many connections on the inside of SI in 2008.

Lets build a time machine! *-:) :p

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grendizer
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Re: Coping with the "depression"

Post by grendizer » 09 Apr 2014, 01:15

My feelings exactly

Image

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