One of my main concerns when Autodesk took over the reigns of Softimage was not about what they would do with the technology, but rather *would they continue to talk to us*, or would they be consumed into a distant posture more typical of the mega-corporate culture. And over the years, having devs and reps at the mothership who would go out of their way to talk to us was an important factor, a security blanket (whether real or only perceived), that helped stoke that passion. All we have is each other, on this list and a couple of forums. For the most part, we don't have the 500-artist studios with the internal RnD departments, and intranets with Q&A and support. It's that passion that inspires one to restart, reload, and retry until finally, a solution is found and the day is saved.Īs Softimage users, we have always felt the underdogs. Passion is a necessary attribute (along with pigheaded stubbornness) for anyone who wishes to succeed in CG. Some of us have been on this list and its prior incarnations for almost 20 years, dating back to before XSI was even in development.ĭon't be amazed by the passion expressed by those in the community. Something the old devs hopefully made you aware of is that as SI users, we really do have a community of mutual support and mutual respect that centers around this mailing list. I appreciate your taking the time to introduce the new team to the community. New experiences! If we can just stop hitting the S key to orbit the camera, everything will be fine. We're going to Digital Domain and ILM this week with Duncan. > It's hard to leave Softimage, but it's also hard to not get excited with the new projects. > And it also means that Autodesk is renewing its effort on the Maya FX's toolset, which is not super interesting to you guys obviously, but is that a thing that makes sense. > The new guys have backgrounds in game production, real time shader, physics, etc. > I interviewed every single one of these guys - and some we rejected. > So what does that mean? Well first it means that Autodesk is committed to continuing the development of Softimage - otherwise we wouldn't be spending so much effort building a new team. As written previously, this was planned and we've been hiring and training a whole lot of new group of great people to work on Softimage. > None of us moving to the new Maya FX Montreal team, which is led by me, are really doing it to quit Softimage, it's just a natural evolution of thing. > Actually, you're getting a lot of official information right here in this thread. > Is it so hard to let people know what is going on and where does it > customer about Softimage and AD's plans for it, that not a single > It is a bit bad that even after so many concerns displayed from > On Wed, at 3:26 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote: > From: [mailto: On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau > If you're ever in Singapore, we'd love to meet you. > Me? I just manage the team so am the "overhead" :-) Mainly engaged in UI projects using COM, MFC, C++, etc while at another team at Autodesk. Wrote core libraries for math, physics simulation, rendering while at LucasArts. Last in Ubisoft doing rendering and engine systems. > John Tensuan - Rendering, Data Management. 12+ years, last 5 as an architect in games development. From NVIDIA, worked on games middleware and runtime engines for 8 yrs. But that should go down as we become more familiar with the code. Sure, we don't have the 10-15 year histories with Soft that the "old" team had, but we're happy to say that they're still around (even many from the acquisition who eventually moved to other Autodesk teams) and still helping out when there's a need. > It's true that the team doesn't know the code as well as Luc-Eric and team but that's not to say that we're newbies to software development, 3D graphics, simulations, rendering, etc. Hence Autodesk is still investing in the Softimage since guess what? Soft still makes money for the company. are still around (the first 3 are in fact still developing enhancements and bug fixes for customers). Moreover, folks like JF, Francis, David, Manny, Graham, etc. And there're more people in the team than there were in Montreal two years ago. > We're all based in Singapore btw (so the comments on durians were apt) where the cost of labour isn't that much different from Montreal and certainly much higher (3x?) than in China. have moved to the Maya team, we'll be participating more actively especially when there're technical issues reported. Now that Luc-Eric, Guillaume LaForge, Guillaume Laferriere, etc. We've been lurking on the list so far, and have been amazed by the passion of most in the community for Softimage and will support it as best as we can. Luc-Eric's comments are a good segway for me to introduce some members of the new team and what they're working on.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |