Autodesk acquires Softimage

[Goldo_O]

http://pressreleases.autodesk.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=485%3C%2Ftd%3E

[mr_ace]

i dont get it? whats the point in owning 3 large but essentially similar products? surely theyre just wasting money...

[Hatred]

deam it lookslike autodesk want to be monopolist here... it wont be good for developement and inovation in new relises of all 3d programs... hope it wont look like all new relises of photoshop where you just pay for new number in title not te real inovation in program...

[MostlyToad]

deam it lookslike autodesk want to be monopolist here... it wont be good for developement and inovation in new relises of all 3d programs... hope it wont look like all new relises of photoshop where you just pay for new number in title not te real inovation in program...

True.. I'm having a hard time seeing this end up good for the industry..
I'm surprised avid wanted to sell them.. it looked like softimage was going to make some very big and good changes.

[FredH]

wow, and they bought them out for as little as 35 million. I would have thought it would be more expensive.

[seven]

I agree... I would put a bit more than a 35 million price tag on softimage... however... we are in a quote unquote recession/depression/no one knows what the name for this really is/fiscally challenged borderline socialism/what's this about Marxism books selling like hotcakes in Germany? so I guess if we don't know how much toxic loans are worth... we have to low ball an excellent software company.

[Maph]

No sodding way! :uhh: :uhh: :uhh: :uhh:
My favorite app is going to go right down the crapper now...

The borg reached another step in CAD/DCC world domination. :brick:

[Inpw]

next will be Pixologic :)

[LowRez]

wow, and they bought them out for as little as 35 million. I would have thought it would be more expensive.

depends on a companys finacial status really, Softimage for all its hard work isn't installed at anywhere as many studios as it could be, and that means taking the next step requires someone with big bucks to come in and take the product to the next step. With the world market going crazy now, $35m is more than $0 if they go bust over the coming year too 18months which is the likly time a recession will hit and recover.

It could be bad it could be good, as a max user I hope the XSI team has some influence on them and makes Max a bit less old school and more streamlined.

[JacqueChoi]

No sodding way! :uhh: :uhh: :uhh: :uhh:
My favorite app is going to go right down the crapper now...

The borg reached another step in CAD/DCC world domination. :brick:

Naw, they don't really do much of anything.

Not only did they completely leave Maya alone, it's still a completely different product, in direct competition with 3D Max, and I mean that in a completely negative way.

It's like they never communicate with each other about anything. All the flaws of Maya, and Max were kept intact, they don't seem to learn from each other or borrow each others ideas to make a stronger software package.

I was hoping there would be better integration tools for normal map creation when they bought Mudbox, but nope, nada nothing. They're still completely different packages that aren't really optimal for crossing over.

XSI will likely remain untouched, and the development team will likely remain intact, and competing for market share against Maya and Max, and Autodesk will likely just laugh their way to the bank.


The only thing I'm worried about is how much the prices of these softwares are going to skyrocket now that they have a monopoly over nearly all things 3D.

[seven]

Naw, they don't really do much of anything.

Not only did they completely leave Maya alone, it's still a completely different product, in direct competition with 3D Max, and I mean that in a completely negative way.

It's like they never communicate with each other about anything. All the flaws of Maya, and Max were kept intact, they don't seem to learn from each other or borrow each others ideas to make a stronger software package.

I was hoping there would be better integration tools for normal map creation when they bought Mudbox, but nope, nada nothing. They're still completely different packages that aren't really optimal for crossing over.

XSI will likely remain untouched, and the development team will likely remain intact, and competing for market share against Maya and Max, and Autodesk will likely just laugh their way to the bank.


The only thing I'm worried about is how much the prices of these softwares are going to skyrocket now that they have a monopoly over nearly all things 3D.

you can't deny that max has acquired many of the features that maya has... they're still absorbing the product into their flagship program. Maya can be left untouched... it's the progress with max that show's an intent to make one single program. It's likely that you will see the technologies from xsi bleed over to max in the coming year.

[LowRez]

you can't deny that max has acquired many of the features that maya has... they're still absorbing the product into their flagship program. Maya can be left untouched... it's the progress with max that show's an intent to make one single program. It's likely that you will see the technologies from xsi bleed over to max in the coming year.

for them to do that though max seriously needs to improve in performance, and that would require a re-write of the code, at the minute they just bolt new features on it seems and try to avoid breaking old code, and it's becoming bloated and slower, a re-write with all the features included from the start + all the best bits from xsi and maya replaceing all the poor bits from max would be the dream.... but a highly unlikely one as autodesk has no competitiors and will just take your cash for a slightly updated and more bloated program.

[seven]

I agree with you that they'll just bloat the program even more. I didn't say that they would or wouldn't rebuild max or create a new program from the ground up. What I did say was that it shows intent to combine the technologies. How they do that is completely based on potential financial prowess gained from the market. I won't deny that if they continue to make profits nothing will change in their model, however, if they see a downturn in their sales they may consider it. I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

[Deto]

What I'd like to see is fixing the bugs in the softwares (finally), integrate better working export/import/basefile support and suchs. And then concentrate resources to make perfect combination of the three and with integrated sculpting soft. And of course continue to support the 'past programs' and keep them on the shelves if people wish to rather use those than the new 'master'.

Dunno if its clever, stupid, or ridiculous. But I'd really love max with mudbox integrated in :D

[blankslatejoe]

smart move on autodesks part....buy the product AND the competition AND the competition to the competition... it doesnt matter what you use, they get the money. It's smart to pit two or three products against eachother and downplay the fact that you own them all...

not that i think it's the greatest thing for us, mind you.

[cookepuss]

True. In reality, its now a situation of doing things the Autodesk way or no way at all.

Autodesk is playing a very dangerous game. They're angering over a lot of people who don't necessarily subscribe to the Autodesk philosophy of business. These people they're pissing off are now their customers. It's never a good idea to alienate your user base. They're also risking stifling innovation and competition. Not to mention walking that line between fair business and monopoly.

I said this elsewhere, but I stand by it. Autodesk is the real world equivalent of a FPS camper.

It takes zero skill to hide in the shadows and pick off your competition one by one. All it takes is a buttload of patience and an even bigger buttload of ammo. If it costs too much to beat `em, just buy `em.

As a C4D user, I'm in a different situation than some of you. While C4D is being used quite a bit in the film industry lately - for matte work, modeling, and texture painting - it also has a huge following in the motion graphics industry. Some might argue that mograph is its bread & butter. So, while C4D v11 may be technologically competitive with something like Maya, some people may argue that there's no reason for Autodesk to acquire C4D. So far, I'm safe enough, right?

Now, the problem comes when Autodesk will want to get a piece of that motion graphics industry, where there's actually a lot of money to be made. The real fear is that, instead of them innovating their own tools they'll simply just acquire C4D, which already has big foot in that market. Although Maxon is owned by a publicly held company, that still doesn't make C4D untouchable. As an added benefit, they'd also gain an even larger presence in the film industry since BodyPaint3D is the same exact product as C4D. Just a different splash screen.

There's a tangible amount of fear, resentment, and animosity over Autodesk's near Microsoft & Google way of doing business. It's heavy handed and anti-competition. If "big studio x" had any lingering thoughts about adopting a non-Autodesk pipeline those thoughts are nearly gone.

After having just spent nearly $4k for C4D v11 Studio I'm wondering how safe I really am from the long arm of Autodesk. Many Maxon users are fairly confident that C4D is safe, for a wide variety of reasons, but the real world works in some very mysterious ways.

People thought that it was odd that Autodesk would own TWO high end 3D suites. Now they own THREE. What's to stop them from buying any more, to conquer other market? Like I said, heavy handed.

The competition in the high end 3D market is now relatively small. It's down to Autodesk VS themself, Maxon, Newtek, and SideFX. With Newtek's product being at a sub-$1k price point, it occupies a wholly different sort of consumer market. Price point-wise, that only leaves C4D and Houdini in the same market. Houdini's user base is consistent, but still fairly small. With C4D's user base having increased by leaps and bounds these past few versions, especially in North America, the fear of acquisition is very real on the part of C4D users.

I don't hate Autodesk or anything, but I'm not a customer of theirs for a reason. Now, there's the fear that (eventually) I may have little choice.




You know what REALLY gets me though? Autodesk is already stretched thin as it is. There have been a lot of (justifiable) complaints that recent Maya and 3dsmax releases have been little more than expensive 0.5 upgrades. Now, they've got XSI and the rest of Softimages high profile products in the mix. Even with the newly acquired staff, Autodesk is going to stretch their corporate resources immensely. This is yet another reason I'm actually glad I'm not a current Autodesk customer.

Plus, just watch Autodesk pass off future new features as "innovations" when all they are is a by product of expensive software cross pollination.

Again, FPS camper mentality.

1) Wait for the right moment.
2) Pick `em off.
3) Steal their ammo & weapons.
4) Repeat steps 1-3 until victorious or you accidentally frag yourself. ;)

[seven]

agreed... but don't forget luxology... couple years back at siggraph, autodesk listed softimage as their number one competitor... luxology was second. This is because of the methods luxology is using to build modo. It has serious potential of stealing a fair share of the market if they get a good set of character animation/rigging tools, dynamics, hair and particle effects. Do I believe all of these things will be in the next release? no... but I still believe Autodesk holds Luxology up very high on their most dangerous list.

I wish xsi was not under the autodesk umbrella but I don't make those decisions... it seems like no one asks me what I think before they go and lowball a great product or consider buying up bad debt at cost. Call me... I'll tell you what you should do with your money.

[Robert Samurai]

Wow... It wasn't that long ago when they aquired Alias.

Hmmm.... I think it would benefit more to buy Autodesk stock while it's cheap than to buy their products.

I use Maya from what I got from school. Anyone else besides Cookepuss have a non-adsk pipeline?

I'd like to have Silo and Modo.

[Robert Samurai]

I know this thread died a while ago, but I found this youtube vid quite entertaining

Autodesk internal discussion about Softimage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7UWImpG54)

[cookepuss]

I know this thread died a while ago
A while ago? Yeah. 4 days was sooooo long ago. ;)
Saw that vid posted on CG Talk. Funny stuff.

[Maph]

you can't deny that max has acquired many of the features that maya has... they're still absorbing the product into their flagship program. Maya can be left untouched... it's the progress with max that show's an intent to make one single program. It's likely that you will see the technologies from xsi bleed over to max in the coming year.

There's the thing. The core architectures of XSI, Max and Maya are just so different that I find it hard to believe that they will implement core features from app x into app y in a succesfull way.
Or ever come up with a seamless way of transferring data from one app to the other.

Adding CAT to Max won't be an issue, if it would be; I'd have some serious doubts about the borgs R&D departement for Max. ;)

But adding stuff like ICE... Trying to implement a procedural paradigm of data handling into an architecture that (by the looks of it) isn't built to do so, ought to be a tad tricky to say at least.
I mean, SI basicly rewrote the XSI-core to implement this.

Anyway, I fail to see any good in this aquisition (besides the financial security the borg offers); even if they weren't to kill off XSI.
But, the future will bring closure. Mudbox 2 was in some parts disappointing, but not bad. At least mudbox 2 didn't have... the viewport cube. :)

[wormsign]

There's one thing I keep hearing that I don't agree with, that Autodesk 'left Maya alone.' I was an avid Maya user for years (still am, though I still use the Alias version- GO MAYA 7!!!), but upon seeing the interface changes that Autdesk made, essentially beginning the metamorphosis into Mayax, I was disgusted.

Autodesk had taken some of the least desirable (to me anyways) polygon workflows of Max and dumped them into Maya. Were it not for me digging through a buttload of menus I wouldn't have even known that I could have had it back to the way I knew and loved. It won't be long before one would have to go through my most hated of Maxisms and have to start collapsing stacks everywhere- or converting to polys. Don't get me wrong, there were things I appreciated about both apps, but I liked that they were separate!

These things would've seemed trivial to me had it not been for one thing. While working at a company, we had just changed from using Maya as our modeling app of choice to Max. Autodesk's acquisition of Alias was still fresh, and as a result of the change in house, Autodesk sent out a couple guys to give us a refresher in Maxology, as well as push some of its newer features. During this little seminar, I made it a point (rather warily, I might add) to ask the guys if Maya would (hopefully) be left untouched in lieu of the buyout. The nice guys there assured me that my beloved app would remain the same, that they didn't believe the company would want to 'alienate Maya's existing user base' by making any drastic changes.

Lo and behold I tested Maya 8.5, and to my dismay, found that I had been lied to- or at the very least, misinformed.

While I don't want to be the doomsayer here, standing on a street corner with a sign that reads 'the end is nigh,' I do believe that any SoftImage user in fear that big bad Autodesk may rape their app of choice is voicing a very valid concern.

For whatever reason the buyout occurred, this is truly another sad day, I pray there aren't many more to come. :brick:

[3D Skillet]

the cooperate stuff I could care less about, and I predict the software will be fine

BUT !!!

does this mean there will only be one party @ siggraph this year ?

bummer :uhh: