Coping with the "depression"

[Hirazi Blue]

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.

[luceric]

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.

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

[FXDude]

[...] 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.

[Mathaeus]

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

[FXDude]

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!

[grendizer]

My feelings exactly

[luceric]

Softimage is dead, 14 years of my life (although, great experience), and while I have love working for Autodesk, I would not work again for a company associated with the person I mentioned.

If you think this is a personal attack, would you read a discussion of Apple but then blast the person for attributing things to Steve job. He is that kind of (public) character. Some people were totally lost when he left.

I may also be totally wrong, and that's fine too to I guess.

[Tekano]

well said luceric it was about time, thank you. without facts and being a million miles from the source (well distance from a user in uk to a developer in canada) it is difficult to truly appreciate who or how the 'toad king' was pulling all the strings and motivations. obviously in hind sight things are clearer.

as mentioned earlier, at least Fabric was going long & strong before marc invested and I have a lot of respect and admiration for their foresight and its potential and suspect there is little other connection than 'advice' ;) but fuck yeah , seriously? how can this be ignored, I felt a bit bashed down earlier for raising this point about the shady connection, so yeah Paul, sorry, I DO have an issue with Fabric and its connection with the nefarious mr petit!

but I still can't help feeling bitter with ADSK about Softimage demise also, (Si3D user 97) and feel the decision makers & shakers are also accountable for the EOL and have recently seen an article of gloating 80% v 20% now for global M&E Software market in ADSK's favour. I have no bad wishes for you or any individuals or developers but in order to cheer myself up I firmly believe the tide may turn against ADSK and eagerly expect or wish for at least a 60% v 40% in M&E by this time next year.

[csaez]

I don't know what's going on between Autodesk employees and Fabric Engine, but some comments are deeply unprofessional (not just here, there are some gems on the mailing list too).

[Hirazi Blue]

While everybody's obviously allowed to have their personal likes and dislikes and act upon them, I find it somewhat puzzling that we (users & employees alike) didn't abandon Autodesk/Softimage at a much earlier date, as most of this was known in one way or another in the past as well. Funny aside: many people currently at Fabric seem to be among the most notable ones who actually did abandon Autodesk/Softimage at such an earlier time.
;)

[azurecgi]

While everybody's obviously allowed to have their personal likes and dislikes and act upon them, I find it somewhat puzzling that we (users & employees alike) didn't abandon Autodesk/Softimage at a much earlier date, as most of this was known in one way or another in the past as well. Funny aside: many people currently at Fabric seem to be among the most notable ones who actually did abandon Autodesk/Softimage at such an earlier time.
;)

Personally, the whole Autodesk acquisition of Softimage has left a bitter taste in my mouth since it happened and every year when I had to stump up their ever-varying subscription payment (varying from too expensive to bloody expensive)!

The only reason I have put up with it for so long is that other 3D software simply does not compare, as I think we are all finding now we are having to seriously consider other packages!

From the first day I started using Softimage it just made sense, and was a complete revelation after over 10 years of Lightwave where I routinely hit a brick wall and ended up frantically searching the web for a plugin. The ability to build my own tools quickly and easily using ICE has made Softimage an absolute pleasure to use, and saved me the sleepless nights I used to suffer from, worrying how I was going to achieve the results my client was looking for.

So far the only light at the end of a very dark AD tunnel is Houdini, which I am currently evaluating, and seems to be the last 3D production tool left on the market that offers anything like the functionality I enjoyed in Softimage (albeit at a higher price )

[NNois]

While everybody's obviously allowed to have their personal likes and dislikes and act upon them, I find it somewhat puzzling that we (users & employees alike) didn't abandon Autodesk/Softimage at a much earlier date, as most of this was known in one way or another in the past as well. Funny aside: many people currently at Fabric seem to be among the most notable ones who actually did abandon Autodesk/Softimage at such an earlier time.
;)

theses peoples are visionaries, the others (users & employees), too buzy, just go with the flow, are lazy, or get ripped off (remembering than Luc-Eric just said the killing plan of softimage nearly started the day of the acquisition)

[grendizer]

most of this was known in one way or another in the past as well

Speaking for myself, I wasn't aware of all that before. Call me naive, I really thought Autodesk would support XSI. I wasn't aware of these Autodesk plans untill one month ago.
And I think I'm not the only one: when the Softimage development team was swapped, everyone was surprised.

[luceric]

While everybody's obviously allowed to have their personal likes and dislikes and act upon them, I find it somewhat puzzling that we (users & employees alike) didn't abandon Autodesk/Softimage at a much earlier date, as most of this was known in one way or another in the past as well. Funny aside: many people currently at Fabric seem to be among the most notable ones who actually did abandon Autodesk/Softimage at such an earlier time.
;)

theses peoples are visionaries, the others (users & employees), too buzy, just go with the flow, are lazy, or get ripped off (remembering than Luc-Eric just said the killing plan of softimage nearly started the day of the acquisition)

yeah but nobody really knew that plan, except that a huge chunk of the devs were moved to Game. But Softimage itself was in the game division at the begining, with suggestion that resources would moved between the projects. It was all very blurry for everyone..

[Hirazi Blue]

There is indeed a marked difference between knowing and having a gut feeling! ;)
The role of Marc Petit and the course M&E took in general (very broadly speaking, of course)
never were that much of a secret, IIRC.

[luceric]

Funny aside: many people currently at Fabric seem to be among the most notable ones who actually did abandon Autodesk/Softimage at such an earlier time.
;)

okay, but who are these "many people". Phil is an entrepreneur and came from an acquisition and moved here from New Zealand. Entrepreneurs pretty much always eventually quit and go do their own things again, that's why they became entrepreneur in the first place - to run things their way! And God bless 'em, they have more courage than I. So has Helge, who's been moving around world and working at different companies (I've only worked in 2 places in 20 years!) I have lots of respect. The second engineer/founder left Softimage month before Autodesk came into the picture, also to co-found something else (also worked less than 3 years on XSI) Paul? A sales person originally from Alien Brain who moved to Autodesk Games in 2008 but and worked on that for two more years. Not exactly a "protest quit" here either.

Btw another poster here somewhat wondered by I didn't "rage quit" myself. I'd never leave the opportunity to work with Pixar/ILM/Dreamworks/EA/Square/etc, this is why I joined Softimage in the first place. Also the opportunity to run/revamp the Maya UI. There are no other job like this in the industry. It's a great job and I love my colleagues.