Dead "Ksyusha" and a dusty kettle. Why "AutomaticTable" - evil corporation
Remember the beginning of the film "Jeepers Creepers" - Every 23 spring, for 23 days, does it eat?
So ... Every year, at the same time, Autodesk releases a new version of all its products, and cuts off support for old ones. Thereby forcing users to update licenses every year ( product pricing - look with one eye.). And everything would be fine if the company really thought about the users, and not about expanding the market to market their programs.
')
An example of excellent design is how to turn a program's glitch into a logo.
I began to write this article greatly outraged by the current situation with 3ds max, but as I collected material and read various forums - I began to understand that the problem is more global than just one graphic package. Immediately make a reservation, I am writing from the point of view of one person, not a production company. And I begin, perhaps, with:
The program is a simulator of its own unexpected departures, crashes, hangs, damage to saved files and at the same time the largest repository of potentially breakthrough, but unfinished and crookedly working ideas.
Who is 3ds Max for according to Autodesk itself?
This article was born after I decided to move from 2013 to 2015th max. We can say that these are two years (!) Of improvements and innovations. And in all seriousness, in the official document “features (norm. Lang. - gimmick-dryuchka) and innovations” in the first place is this:
New undo arrows. The second. Next to the first. Do the same. Same as Ctrl + Z !
During the upgrade program from any version from 2009 to 2014, Autodesk asks for a penny - only $ 2.965 and 98 cents. And as I have already mentioned, previous versions are not “supported” (norm. Languages ​​are supported).
Of course, there are still “innovations”, and maybe they are not so absurd, but most of the category “Remember 2-3-4 years ago we added a feature? Well, this year we repaired it! "
Nearly
According to unconfirmed data, a drunk detachment of macaques broke into Autodesk's office, tied up the programmers, and throwing each other with keyboards accidentally coded a new system for working with layers for 3Ds Max 2015.
Tom Hudson, one of the creators of the program (it seems that he, did not work in Autodesk for some time), spoke publicly about 3ds Max and the policies of Autodesk as a whole:
His statement (while I was writing the article), along with the whole huge discussion in which serious people from the film industry and even different universities participated, were removed. Someone ...
For historical reference: Tom Hudson is not just someone from the team of "pioneers", he and Gary Yost are two people who created 3ds Max. It can not be so simply ignored. It's as if Apple decided to fire Steve Jobs. It can not be.
This whole situation with the new features sucked from the finger is especially strange, given that 3ds Max probably has the largest community (norm. Community) among all other programs. There is a SITE where "lone geniuses" write simply unrealisticcrutches plugins for 3ds Max. Someone gives up their scripts just like that, someone sells. Under 3ds Max, thousands of various improvements have been created for any needs and situations. But it seems that Autodesk itself does not even look at how people who love the product are trying to improve it. On the site you can find a lot of comments like:
(eng.) Autodesk where are you looking? So here you need to develop tools! ( written about it )
Does this make 3ds max a bad program? Not. This is a great program with, as I said at the outset, a lot of potential, but ... You can very quickly create the foundation of the project. It is convenient to work at the last stage, when all the elements are assembled into the finished scene. But the "middle of the workflow," the detailed configuration of the elements is hell.
Numerous glitches, bugs, flaws, ideas not brought to mind, inadequate functionality all travels from one version to another. And then service packs go for service packs, then packs come to the service fixes (Hotfixes), then patches. In the 2014 version of the program 5 service packs, and in 2012 it was already 12 pieces! It seems that Autodesk can't do everything right the first time.
Personally, I, as a user of Max with 10 years of experience, directs all of this to the country of buttons from a keyboard and mice smashed from a fist’s blows. In the country of sadness and sorrow. Although, I must admit, this is not so terrible as:
For most multi-tasking programs, and especially for graphic 3D editors, the interfaces suffer (or) excessive process congestion and inhibition. But after all, people think creatively in images rather than logic, and this is called "creativity" and not "analytical actions to create a copy of reality." What artist wants to program scripts, adjust parameters, move sliders, climb the menu in the submenu, in the scrollbar, in the new window, with the tick taken, which must be put in another menu. And while you get an unobvious result. You need to suffer half a day before you create a picture that can be drawn with ketchup on a napkin in two minutes.
And suddenly, as if a metal basin had fallen on a tiled floor in a morgue where “nobody was moving”, it struck:
He as if says: - Brother, I found your creativity. Take this
In 2008, Avid introduced a fundamentally new approach to work in its graphical package, Softimage. The system was called "Interactive Creative Environment", or abbreviated "ICE" (eng. - ice). This system allowed “programming” without knowledge of any programming language simply by making diagrams of the functions connected by nodes.
In other words - visual programming. Artists were no longer dependent on programmers and could themselves “write” to themselves any plug-in they need, or functionality.
All this without a single line of code.
It was a brilliant decision! So brilliant that 4 months after the official presentation, the company Autodesk bought from the company Avid the Softimage product for $ 35 million. Which of course immediately caused a lot of negative feedback and concerns about the future of the product. But Autodesk solemnly assured that it will develop the product. And that this new revolutionary approach to work will be implemented in Maya, in 3ds Max,and in bicycles, and in light switches, and in the ground so that potatoes grow better. The main thing is to believe us. ...
6 years have passed.
Pain.
The official reason goes something like this: “Yes. Made not quite a good deal. Bought a product, users who, in comparison with the 3Ds Max and Maya, not so much. Many products competing with each other mean low cost of each. Control over another team of developers, PR managers, managers. The product does not quite pay back the costs. There is no opportunity to fully focus on their other products. We are forced to stop the development of Softimage in order to give life to 3Ds Max and Maya. We start a tear rendered in MentalRay and apologize with honest eyes.
And in fact?
In fact, in 2008, Autodesk was very scared. Immediately, both 3ds Max and Maya, who were stagnant in those years, had a serious competitor! With a more advanced approach to the workflow. This intuitive and understandable system could attract a large number of “newbies”. Probably everyone at all. How much time would it take to develop and implement something similar in your own products? How many resources would have to be invested in order to then recapture some of the lost market?
And despite the fact that Softimage as a product was absolutely not needed by Autodesk, spending 35 million in this case is a huge saving not only of money, but more importantly, of time to develop promising technologies. And plus they not only did not lose, but even got some part of the market already owned by Softimage.
After the acquisition, Autodesk began to slow but surely slow down the development of the Softimage, year after year, reducing the updates made to the program. At some point, the entire key team that worked on the Softimage was generally transferred to Maya. And after the announcement of the date of execution, Autodesk invited users to switch to Max, or Maya, for free.
Forgive Neo, but the red truth pills are over.
Curious fact. A year after the purchase of Softimage, in 2009, more than 350 innovations were added to 3ds Max. What suggests the backward state of the program before. And in subsequent years, relatively good innovations were also added. Including: excellent, but mowing, bone system for animating CAT characters; Populate module; Graphite Modeling Tools. And you know what? This is not the development of 3ds Max, all of this came from Softimage. First sold as part of one product, and then as innovations in another ...
Simply put - buying a product, they immediately knew that they would kill him. They didn’t put Softimage up for auction so that someone could buy and continue development, no, they just destroyed it. They took a good (WORKING !!!) idea, ineptly cut out all the “tidbits” from it and threw out the rest.
For more accurate, unconfirmed data, drunken monkeys entering Autodesk’s office didn’t create, but copy some functionality from Softimage, and present it as innovations in 3ds Max 2015. The same principle of working with layers, stereo cameras, Python, and advanced work with shaders.
Yes, from the point of view of the development of the company as a whole, and the capture of the market - everything is played competently. And in terms of users? People who have used this program for many years (especially the Japanese loved it a lot), or people who have been developing Softimage for decades.
Watch this impressive 2010 video:
Simulation of cloth, liquid, elastic and sticky (what? ..) bodies (HOW ?!)
For two years, Lagoa Multiphysics has been developed by one Thiago Costa for Softimage specifically. And this also no longer exists. Like Face Robot , like CrowdFX .
Softimage is not just a program that no longer exists, it is 27 years of the intellectual work of thousands of people. This is a multi-million dollar development flown into the pipe, at the request of Autodesk management.
competitor is dead
Perhaps you decide that I am exaggerating, saying that the “program is dead”, that it is there, has not gone away, and still with the same functionality? Yes there is. That's just to buy it anymore, in any form. Autodesk stopped selling licenses, and accordingly, all that remains is only illegal pirated copies. And that literally means killing a product. Do you have the right words for people making these decisions? I am sure that there is.
But Autodesk is developing Maya. This is a megaproduct! It is very complex and therefore probably the best. He can do a lot of things, with him you can come to success, and all adult uncles use it.
Well, like, like, yes ... enjoy.
Megaprodukt, it is. This is a giant "Swiss knife", which can do a lot, but it is inconvenient to work with it by modern standards. And Autodesk Maya does not develop. Unless of course consider the periodic purchase of additions / improvements made by third-party developers.
So where, then, does all the reverent horror of Maya's power come from? What is the impression that this is an exceptional product, which has no equal?
For example, here’s a video about how special effects were done in the movie “New Spiderman 2: High Voltage”:
Impressive, isn't it? Calculation of the physical body mass for realistic Spider-Man movement, muscle tension and fluctuations in a relaxed state
Only 3D artists have little to do with this, this is pure programming. And what do you think, if the production of the film was spent several million on the development of these technologies, the studio that developed these additions, just so easy, will release them into "open access"? .. No, of course! If a special framework for work and proper selection of fabric simulations was written for the movie “War of Z Worlds”, will it be included in the next release of the program? Not.
In other words - Autodesk uses the film industry's achievements in working with Maya to advertise and sell it. But the “possibilities” of Maya are not entirely connected with the product itself, but rather with the geniuses working in world-famous film studios. Why for Vasi Pupkin miscalculation of the trajectory of physical bodies, or a simulation of crowds of zombies, if he is the maximum that can - is to make an animation of a rotating cube?
Autodesk is absolutely not profitable to invest in the development of Maya, because the "smart people" themselves and fasten to it everything they need. And when they are screwed, then you can try to buy it. For example, more or less adequate tools for working with modeling were added only last year (sic!). Yes, bought on the side. Yes, again everything looks like something tied up with adhesive tape on the side.
And immediately another question arises. So if such difficulties when working with Maya, then why do studios use it at all?
Studio MPC visual effects . Work on special effects for "Godzilla"
Before you answer why major studios Maya, you should start with how these studios work. In Hollywood, only exceptional specialists and masters are appreciated. Dozens or even hundreds of people work in the studios, and each of them is a professional in a particular field. For example: Someone feels the movements of creatures well and is engaged in character animation, someone has a well-developed spatial thinking and he can coordinate the creation of a complex scene with many animations, and someone has an imagination that works well with the environment and he can add interesting details for current events, etc.
And precisely in order to satisfy the professional requirements of each of the studio’s employees, a rather flexible tool was needed that could be adjusted to any task. And most importantly, under the most convenient and therefore productive workflow of each of the workers. Maya was born here. This is nothing more than a basis for organizing a conveyor. But to customize this “pipeline” to the needs of animators, texture makers or any other studio workers is a programmer’s concern.
So it turns out that only studios with a large staff of highly targeted specialists who expand the functionality only for themselves can work with Maya in full force. And the specialists in these studios are of such high class that they can literally write their own graphic packages. For example, Mudbox (also bought by Autodesk), or Mari, or Maya itself - these programs came straight from the film studios. And for three days, Vasya Pupkin made a rotating cube not because his hands were bent, but because he wanted to go fast and, like in Hollywood, he got lost in excess functionality and numerous menus.
Is this a glitch? Is this a bug? No, it's all just a right click.
This year, in May 2015, Naiad (purchased from Exotic Matter), a technology for photorealistic simulation of liquid bodies, was added. Used in blockbusters like “Avatar, Narnia: Voyage of the Dawntreader, Pirates of the Caribbean: On the Tides, Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
here is a wax rabbit , and here is an elephant in chocolate
Autodesk bought Naiad back in 2012. Bought, and waited 2 years for the release of this technology on the market. Now they have added Naiad to Maya, in a stripped down form, and renamed it Bifrost. Naturally, next year in the list of “new features and improvements” of Bifrost, everything that they have cut out now will appear in order to create an activity and progress. Anyway, the goal of Bifrost is to make a serious competition to RealFlow, and to the strong imposer Houdini with his systems of various simulations.
Instead of an elephant in chocolate, RealFlow has a truck in ... also chocolate
But the right question is why it was “implemented” in Maya, although earlier Naiad was an independent fully functional product? Most likely, Autodesk thereby plans to increase the functional difference with 3ds Max.
The main reason for having two practically identical products on hand is the total profit. And how to sell Maya and 3ds max to the same people, if they are so similar? Very simple. Let one program be a curve in one direction, and the other in the opposite direction.
In 3ds max, it is relatively convenient to model and work with large “architectural” scenes, and Maya is more advanced in animations and simulations. Autodesk is desperately trying to maintain this balance, and not let one of the products noticeably get ahead, that they even have the same price. Dollar to Dollar.
In general, about Maya, in contrast to 3Ds Max, you can’t say something categorically bad. In addition, it is confused before bullying. With all its menus, checkboxes, and the need to enter numbers. This is especially obvious for people who first launched it. And so, it seems, Autodesk is beginning to slowlyadd parts to buy for comfortable work. But the other guys ... Good guys. Those who think more about users, about innovations and about progress have already arrived.
Yes, and not bad at all. For example: Blender is absolutely free and almost (or in general) in no way inferior to everyone else; Houdini with procedural animation, and this program is put as a competitor to Maya; LightWave 3D is a direct alternative to 3Ds Max; Shade 3D is a little-known with us, but very popular application in the Asian market that has special tools for working with 3D printing.
And there are two VERY promising products at the moment - these are Modo ($ 1,495) from The Foundry, and Cinema4d ($ 3,695) from Maxon. Why are they so good?that do not belong to autodesk
This graphic package recently began to work directly in conjunction with the products of the company Adobe. Moreover (!), A slightly simplified version is included with After Effects. What does it mean?
This means that almost all of the “new generation” of advertisers, music video makers, video amateurs, and photo-shooters will start learning 3D from Cinema4d. This niche was previously dominated by 3Ds Max and Maya. But after a while, even well-established video production professionals will switch to Cinema4d. Just because this package is always "at hand". All this frightened the lazy Autodesk so much that in the new 3Ds Max 2015 they added (after 15 years of program sharing!) “Normal” interaction with Photoshop and After Effecs. Only here it is done too late, and in the spirit of Autodesk - square.
Some kind of serial. Called "Bad Fucking"
In general, Cinema4d is much larger in scope (hence the price) than a niche into which marketers are trying to shove it. And while relatively easy to learn. The only, in my opinion, probable reason why the program was not so widespread as, say, Maya or 3ds max, is that it is made in Germany. That is, it is just far away from Hollywood, and from the American market. But, as Adobe intervened, everything will change very quickly, and the product will begin to “leak” into the major studios.
The Foundry already has two standards in the film industry - Nuke for compositing (multi-dimensional combining of images in a video series), which has become de facto in large studios and Mari (textured three-dimensional models).
And the product of this company Modo is the reason why I previously wrote that “the interfaces of the land (LI) are confusion.” Because in Modo "simplicity" is put at the forefront. This does not mean that it is easier to master Modo than, for example, 3ds max. Any program for three-dimensional modeling requires a large amount of knowledge and time for training. But the speed of work in Modo is exceptional. No unnecessary actions and menus. And, strangely enough, it is the innovative workflow of the program that scares many.
2008 video
In the new version of Modo 801 a direct link with Nuke was added through EXR format files. Without going into technical details - it allows you to create magic! CGI graphics can now be placed in the video with a great visual match. And, again, as with the integration of Cinema4d in After Effecs, such a close relationship with Nuke will allow Modo to attract a large number of people who use Nuke. If anyone does not know, then probably 90% of Hollywood films ( habropost ) are being made with the Nuke program. And soon the V-Ray render will be connected to Modo and Nuke, and this will create the shortest possible production process. And it will be very difficult for the competing programs to “wedge in” with this trio.
Now Modo lacks only a more advanced physics engine for simulations. And so, the tools of retopology in Modo are the best (yes, better than TopoGun), the work with animation keys is generally brilliant, and the interface itself is made by aliens. But not thosestoned ones that made the interface in zBrush, but others, correct.
And the most important thing. Both Modo and Cinema4d, in contrast to Maya and 3Ds Max, have tools for “sculpting” (high-poly modeling) and texturing (coloring) models. That is, neither zBrush nor, as an option, Mudbox - you do not need.
There is a dead Softimage (bought out in 2008 from Avid), which was the simplest and was more focused on the gaming industry. There is a dusty 3ds Max (first developed by Yost Group, Autodesk was just a publisher), which, apparently, Autodesk decided to finally position itself as a program for architects andtoilet designers of furniture arrangers in a square room with one window (and hanging, hanging with flowers .. .) There is a Mudbox (purchased together with the company founder Skymatter in 2007), which at the beginning of its development pulled out, but without catching up with zBrush, now it is all covered with glitches and flaws crawling alongside Max. There is a logical-tactical-puzzle-quest-RPG - Maya (acquired in 2005 from Alias), in which it is better to "play" in the company, and using the constant prompts of smart uncles.
Yes, there are mistakes that make large companies, there are serious business miscalculations, unsuccessful development paths, but you can hardly find at least one other company from the IT sphere with a similar disregard for your users, their needs, and people in general.And Autodesk is a prime example of why and why antitrust services exist.
This is a giant octopus, which grabs its tentacles with innovative technologies in the bud and hides them under itself. And then, controlling their growth - feeds on the “thirsty” users of these technologies.
This is a real evil corporation, creating something to please only itself.
UFO, I believe in your cleansing ray of justice. And do not punish your righteous punishment for me, because I do not pursue any mercenary goals and have no thoughts, except for the impulses of the early heart and ... in short:
SAVE SOFTIMAGE! Petition sent to Autodesk. Habr, a couple of votes for justice, for Half Life 2 , and just to the joy of friends of the Japanese. I did not use Softimage myself, but I saw a lot of great things done in this program. By the way, some companies have offered Softimage users large discounts on their products.
1999 . Softimage
PSS «» . , . , , «» Wikipedia. , - , . . ,
So ... Every year, at the same time, Autodesk releases a new version of all its products, and cuts off support for old ones. Thereby forcing users to update licenses every year ( product pricing - look with one eye.). And everything would be fine if the company really thought about the users, and not about expanding the market to market their programs.
')
An example of excellent design is how to turn a program's glitch into a logo.
I began to write this article greatly outraged by the current situation with 3ds max, but as I collected material and read various forums - I began to understand that the problem is more global than just one graphic package. Immediately make a reservation, I am writing from the point of view of one person, not a production company. And I begin, perhaps, with:
3D Studio Max
The program is a simulator of its own unexpected departures, crashes, hangs, damage to saved files and at the same time the largest repository of potentially breakthrough, but unfinished and crookedly working ideas.
Who is 3ds Max for according to Autodesk itself?
This article was born after I decided to move from 2013 to 2015th max. We can say that these are two years (!) Of improvements and innovations. And in all seriousness, in the official document “features (norm. Lang. - gimmick-dryuchka) and innovations” in the first place is this:
New undo arrows. The second. Next to the first. Do the same. Same as Ctrl + Z !
During the upgrade program from any version from 2009 to 2014, Autodesk asks for a penny - only $ 2.965 and 98 cents. And as I have already mentioned, previous versions are not “supported” (norm. Languages ​​are supported).
Of course, there are still “innovations”, and maybe they are not so absurd, but most of the category “Remember 2-3-4 years ago we added a feature? Well, this year we repaired it! "
Nearly
Tom Hudson, one of the creators of the program (it seems that he, did not work in Autodesk for some time), spoke publicly about 3ds Max and the policies of Autodesk as a whole:
“I wrote a letter to Autodesk. He said that many things in 3ds Max are very stagnant, that there is a big field for improvements. And that I, now on hand, have some very interesting and useful innovations that I am sure the users will like. But I have not received any response from Autodesk. That is, they did not say “We need time to think,” or “No, we have other plans,” they just ignored my letters. ”
His statement (while I was writing the article), along with the whole huge discussion in which serious people from the film industry and even different universities participated, were removed. Someone ...
For historical reference: Tom Hudson is not just someone from the team of "pioneers", he and Gary Yost are two people who created 3ds Max. It can not be so simply ignored. It's as if Apple decided to fire Steve Jobs. It can not be.
This whole situation with the new features sucked from the finger is especially strange, given that 3ds Max probably has the largest community (norm. Community) among all other programs. There is a SITE where "lone geniuses" write simply unrealistic
(eng.) Autodesk where are you looking? So here you need to develop tools! ( written about it )
Does this make 3ds max a bad program? Not. This is a great program with, as I said at the outset, a lot of potential, but ... You can very quickly create the foundation of the project. It is convenient to work at the last stage, when all the elements are assembled into the finished scene. But the "middle of the workflow," the detailed configuration of the elements is hell.
Numerous glitches, bugs, flaws, ideas not brought to mind, inadequate functionality all travels from one version to another. And then service packs go for service packs, then packs come to the service fixes (Hotfixes), then patches. In the 2014 version of the program 5 service packs, and in 2012 it was already 12 pieces! It seems that Autodesk can't do everything right the first time.
Personally, I, as a user of Max with 10 years of experience, directs all of this to the country of buttons from a keyboard and mice smashed from a fist’s blows. In the country of sadness and sorrow. Although, I must admit, this is not so terrible as:
The Story of Softimage (XSI)
For most multi-tasking programs, and especially for graphic 3D editors, the interfaces suffer (or) excessive process congestion and inhibition. But after all, people think creatively in images rather than logic, and this is called "creativity" and not "analytical actions to create a copy of reality." What artist wants to program scripts, adjust parameters, move sliders, climb the menu in the submenu, in the scrollbar, in the new window, with the tick taken, which must be put in another menu. And while you get an unobvious result. You need to suffer half a day before you create a picture that can be drawn with ketchup on a napkin in two minutes.
And suddenly, as if a metal basin had fallen on a tiled floor in a morgue where “nobody was moving”, it struck:
He as if says: - Brother, I found your creativity. Take this
In 2008, Avid introduced a fundamentally new approach to work in its graphical package, Softimage. The system was called "Interactive Creative Environment", or abbreviated "ICE" (eng. - ice). This system allowed “programming” without knowledge of any programming language simply by making diagrams of the functions connected by nodes.
In other words - visual programming. Artists were no longer dependent on programmers and could themselves “write” to themselves any plug-in they need, or functionality.
All this without a single line of code.
It was a brilliant decision! So brilliant that 4 months after the official presentation, the company Autodesk bought from the company Avid the Softimage product for $ 35 million. Which of course immediately caused a lot of negative feedback and concerns about the future of the product. But Autodesk solemnly assured that it will develop the product. And that this new revolutionary approach to work will be implemented in Maya, in 3ds Max,
6 years have passed.
Pain.
The official reason goes something like this: “Yes. Made not quite a good deal. Bought a product, users who, in comparison with the 3Ds Max and Maya, not so much. Many products competing with each other mean low cost of each. Control over another team of developers, PR managers, managers. The product does not quite pay back the costs. There is no opportunity to fully focus on their other products. We are forced to stop the development of Softimage in order to give life to 3Ds Max and Maya. We start a tear rendered in MentalRay and apologize with honest eyes.
And in fact?
In fact, in 2008, Autodesk was very scared. Immediately, both 3ds Max and Maya, who were stagnant in those years, had a serious competitor! With a more advanced approach to the workflow. This intuitive and understandable system could attract a large number of “newbies”. Probably everyone at all. How much time would it take to develop and implement something similar in your own products? How many resources would have to be invested in order to then recapture some of the lost market?
And despite the fact that Softimage as a product was absolutely not needed by Autodesk, spending 35 million in this case is a huge saving not only of money, but more importantly, of time to develop promising technologies. And plus they not only did not lose, but even got some part of the market already owned by Softimage.
After the acquisition, Autodesk began to slow but surely slow down the development of the Softimage, year after year, reducing the updates made to the program. At some point, the entire key team that worked on the Softimage was generally transferred to Maya. And after the announcement of the date of execution, Autodesk invited users to switch to Max, or Maya, for free.
Forgive Neo, but the red truth pills are over.
Curious fact. A year after the purchase of Softimage, in 2009, more than 350 innovations were added to 3ds Max. What suggests the backward state of the program before. And in subsequent years, relatively good innovations were also added. Including: excellent, but mowing, bone system for animating CAT characters; Populate module; Graphite Modeling Tools. And you know what? This is not the development of 3ds Max, all of this came from Softimage. First sold as part of one product, and then as innovations in another ...
Simply put - buying a product, they immediately knew that they would kill him. They didn’t put Softimage up for auction so that someone could buy and continue development, no, they just destroyed it. They took a good (WORKING !!!) idea, ineptly cut out all the “tidbits” from it and threw out the rest.
Yes, from the point of view of the development of the company as a whole, and the capture of the market - everything is played competently. And in terms of users? People who have used this program for many years (especially the Japanese loved it a lot), or people who have been developing Softimage for decades.
Watch this impressive 2010 video:
Simulation of cloth, liquid, elastic and sticky (what? ..) bodies (HOW ?!)
For two years, Lagoa Multiphysics has been developed by one Thiago Costa for Softimage specifically. And this also no longer exists. Like Face Robot , like CrowdFX .
Softimage is not just a program that no longer exists, it is 27 years of the intellectual work of thousands of people. This is a multi-million dollar development flown into the pipe, at the request of Autodesk management.
competitor is dead
Perhaps you decide that I am exaggerating, saying that the “program is dead”, that it is there, has not gone away, and still with the same functionality? Yes there is. That's just to buy it anymore, in any form. Autodesk stopped selling licenses, and accordingly, all that remains is only illegal pirated copies. And that literally means killing a product. Do you have the right words for people making these decisions? I am sure that there is.
Our "all"
But Autodesk is developing Maya. This is a megaproduct! It is very complex and therefore probably the best. He can do a lot of things, with him you can come to success, and all adult uncles use it.
Well, like, like, yes ... enjoy.
Many youtubelers
Now you stick for 20 minutes, better read the article first. At least a part about Maya)
Creating a crowd of zombies, simulation of hair and clothes made in Maya
Creating a crowd of zombies, simulation of hair and clothes made in Maya
Megaprodukt, it is. This is a giant "Swiss knife", which can do a lot, but it is inconvenient to work with it by modern standards. And Autodesk Maya does not develop. Unless of course consider the periodic purchase of additions / improvements made by third-party developers.
So where, then, does all the reverent horror of Maya's power come from? What is the impression that this is an exceptional product, which has no equal?
For example, here’s a video about how special effects were done in the movie “New Spiderman 2: High Voltage”:
Impressive, isn't it? Calculation of the physical body mass for realistic Spider-Man movement, muscle tension and fluctuations in a relaxed state
Only 3D artists have little to do with this, this is pure programming. And what do you think, if the production of the film was spent several million on the development of these technologies, the studio that developed these additions, just so easy, will release them into "open access"? .. No, of course! If a special framework for work and proper selection of fabric simulations was written for the movie “War of Z Worlds”, will it be included in the next release of the program? Not.
In other words - Autodesk uses the film industry's achievements in working with Maya to advertise and sell it. But the “possibilities” of Maya are not entirely connected with the product itself, but rather with the geniuses working in world-famous film studios. Why for Vasi Pupkin miscalculation of the trajectory of physical bodies, or a simulation of crowds of zombies, if he is the maximum that can - is to make an animation of a rotating cube?
Autodesk is absolutely not profitable to invest in the development of Maya, because the "smart people" themselves and fasten to it everything they need. And when they are screwed, then you can try to buy it. For example, more or less adequate tools for working with modeling were added only last year (sic!). Yes, bought on the side. Yes, again everything looks like something tied up with adhesive tape on the side.
And immediately another question arises. So if such difficulties when working with Maya, then why do studios use it at all?
Studio MPC visual effects . Work on special effects for "Godzilla"
Before you answer why major studios Maya, you should start with how these studios work. In Hollywood, only exceptional specialists and masters are appreciated. Dozens or even hundreds of people work in the studios, and each of them is a professional in a particular field. For example: Someone feels the movements of creatures well and is engaged in character animation, someone has a well-developed spatial thinking and he can coordinate the creation of a complex scene with many animations, and someone has an imagination that works well with the environment and he can add interesting details for current events, etc.
And precisely in order to satisfy the professional requirements of each of the studio’s employees, a rather flexible tool was needed that could be adjusted to any task. And most importantly, under the most convenient and therefore productive workflow of each of the workers. Maya was born here. This is nothing more than a basis for organizing a conveyor. But to customize this “pipeline” to the needs of animators, texture makers or any other studio workers is a programmer’s concern.
So it turns out that only studios with a large staff of highly targeted specialists who expand the functionality only for themselves can work with Maya in full force. And the specialists in these studios are of such high class that they can literally write their own graphic packages. For example, Mudbox (also bought by Autodesk), or Mari, or Maya itself - these programs came straight from the film studios. And for three days, Vasya Pupkin made a rotating cube not because his hands were bent, but because he wanted to go fast and, like in Hollywood, he got lost in excess functionality and numerous menus.
Is this a glitch? Is this a bug? No, it's all just a right click.
This year, in May 2015, Naiad (purchased from Exotic Matter), a technology for photorealistic simulation of liquid bodies, was added. Used in blockbusters like “Avatar, Narnia: Voyage of the Dawntreader, Pirates of the Caribbean: On the Tides, Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
here is a wax rabbit , and here is an elephant in chocolate
Autodesk bought Naiad back in 2012. Bought, and waited 2 years for the release of this technology on the market. Now they have added Naiad to Maya, in a stripped down form, and renamed it Bifrost. Naturally, next year in the list of “new features and improvements” of Bifrost, everything that they have cut out now will appear in order to create an activity and progress. Anyway, the goal of Bifrost is to make a serious competition to RealFlow, and to the strong imposer Houdini with his systems of various simulations.
Instead of an elephant in chocolate, RealFlow has a truck in ... also chocolate
But the right question is why it was “implemented” in Maya, although earlier Naiad was an independent fully functional product? Most likely, Autodesk thereby plans to increase the functional difference with 3ds Max.
The main reason for having two practically identical products on hand is the total profit. And how to sell Maya and 3ds max to the same people, if they are so similar? Very simple. Let one program be a curve in one direction, and the other in the opposite direction.
In 3ds max, it is relatively convenient to model and work with large “architectural” scenes, and Maya is more advanced in animations and simulations. Autodesk is desperately trying to maintain this balance, and not let one of the products noticeably get ahead, that they even have the same price. Dollar to Dollar.
In general, about Maya, in contrast to 3Ds Max, you can’t say something categorically bad. In addition, it is confused before bullying. With all its menus, checkboxes, and the need to enter numbers. This is especially obvious for people who first launched it. And so, it seems, Autodesk is beginning to slowly
Autodesk Alternatives (y)
Yes, and not bad at all. For example: Blender is absolutely free and almost (or in general) in no way inferior to everyone else; Houdini with procedural animation, and this program is put as a competitor to Maya; LightWave 3D is a direct alternative to 3Ds Max; Shade 3D is a little-known with us, but very popular application in the Asian market that has special tools for working with 3D printing.
And there are two VERY promising products at the moment - these are Modo ($ 1,495) from The Foundry, and Cinema4d ($ 3,695) from Maxon. Why are they so good?
Cinema4d
This graphic package recently began to work directly in conjunction with the products of the company Adobe. Moreover (!), A slightly simplified version is included with After Effects. What does it mean?
This means that almost all of the “new generation” of advertisers, music video makers, video amateurs, and photo-shooters will start learning 3D from Cinema4d. This niche was previously dominated by 3Ds Max and Maya. But after a while, even well-established video production professionals will switch to Cinema4d. Just because this package is always "at hand". All this frightened the lazy Autodesk so much that in the new 3Ds Max 2015 they added (after 15 years of program sharing!) “Normal” interaction with Photoshop and After Effecs. Only here it is done too late, and in the spirit of Autodesk - square.
Some kind of serial. Called "Bad Fucking"
In general, Cinema4d is much larger in scope (hence the price) than a niche into which marketers are trying to shove it. And while relatively easy to learn. The only, in my opinion, probable reason why the program was not so widespread as, say, Maya or 3ds max, is that it is made in Germany. That is, it is just far away from Hollywood, and from the American market. But, as Adobe intervened, everything will change very quickly, and the product will begin to “leak” into the major studios.
Modo
The Foundry already has two standards in the film industry - Nuke for compositing (multi-dimensional combining of images in a video series), which has become de facto in large studios and Mari (textured three-dimensional models).
And the product of this company Modo is the reason why I previously wrote that “the interfaces of the land (LI) are confusion.” Because in Modo "simplicity" is put at the forefront. This does not mean that it is easier to master Modo than, for example, 3ds max. Any program for three-dimensional modeling requires a large amount of knowledge and time for training. But the speed of work in Modo is exceptional. No unnecessary actions and menus. And, strangely enough, it is the innovative workflow of the program that scares many.
2008 video
In the new version of Modo 801 a direct link with Nuke was added through EXR format files. Without going into technical details - it allows you to create magic! CGI graphics can now be placed in the video with a great visual match. And, again, as with the integration of Cinema4d in After Effecs, such a close relationship with Nuke will allow Modo to attract a large number of people who use Nuke. If anyone does not know, then probably 90% of Hollywood films ( habropost ) are being made with the Nuke program. And soon the V-Ray render will be connected to Modo and Nuke, and this will create the shortest possible production process. And it will be very difficult for the competing programs to “wedge in” with this trio.
Now Modo lacks only a more advanced physics engine for simulations. And so, the tools of retopology in Modo are the best (yes, better than TopoGun), the work with animation keys is generally brilliant, and the interface itself is made by aliens. But not those
And the most important thing. Both Modo and Cinema4d, in contrast to Maya and 3Ds Max, have tools for “sculpting” (high-poly modeling) and texturing (coloring) models. That is, neither zBrush nor, as an option, Mudbox - you do not need.
So what is there in Automatic?
There is a dead Softimage (bought out in 2008 from Avid), which was the simplest and was more focused on the gaming industry. There is a dusty 3ds Max (first developed by Yost Group, Autodesk was just a publisher), which, apparently, Autodesk decided to finally position itself as a program for architects and
Conclusion
Yes, there are mistakes that make large companies, there are serious business miscalculations, unsuccessful development paths, but you can hardly find at least one other company from the IT sphere with a similar disregard for your users, their needs, and people in general.And Autodesk is a prime example of why and why antitrust services exist.
This is a giant octopus, which grabs its tentacles with innovative technologies in the bud and hides them under itself. And then, controlling their growth - feeds on the “thirsty” users of these technologies.
This is a real evil corporation, creating something to please only itself.
pSOS
UFO, I believe in your cleansing ray of justice. And do not punish your righteous punishment for me, because I do not pursue any mercenary goals and have no thoughts, except for the impulses of the early heart and ... in short:
SAVE SOFTIMAGE! Petition sent to Autodesk. Habr, a couple of votes for justice, for Half Life 2 , and just to the joy of friends of the Japanese. I did not use Softimage myself, but I saw a lot of great things done in this program. By the way, some companies have offered Softimage users large discounts on their products.
PrintScreen Petitions to Habraeffect
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1999 . Softimage
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/232653/
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