Wala Eshiiiii !!!!
Whattttt!!!!! OMG!!
ok, What about adobe, Autodesk? add adobe to ur profile too,..
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease,...

wow

i suppose it\'s good news for maya/3dsmax users...but probably bad news for xsi users

Autodesk is probably looking down the road 10-20 years and thinking 3d technology is going to get harder and more complex to develop, so they should stock up on brainpower now rather than later.

My guess is autodesk is buying up all the key 3d players and pulling out the best people to work on a new next gen 3d app while leaving the lower end programmers to work on updates for the next few years. They know people will probably end up buying those anyway, so they won\'t really be losing money. And in the meanwhile, they work on their superweapon.

I could be wrong. Maybe they just want control of the industry so they can prevent XSI or whatever from taking over.

We\'d all be in denial though if we thought Maya or Max or even XSI would go on forever getting update after update. Sooner or later, you need to just start over from scratch with a modern foundation. It doesn\'t make sense for Autodesk to have each product line each go through that process when it can just be done one time using the lead programmers from each program to create a superior product

Welcome to socialism.

Look at the bright side.
in a few years all that trouble with \"wich software should i buy/learn\" will be a thing of the past.
autodesk will unveil maxsi.

I\'d disagree with sentry65. If you look at the history of Autodesk\'s acquisitions, they have never discontinued a product line. They will continue to develop XSI, as they wouldn\'t risk alienating it\'s user base. Maya and Max, may get some of XSI\'s features, but I doubt all three will be developed into a super program. Seasoned users, wouldn\'t want to learn a completely new program anyways.

Maybe the only thing that comes out of this is Face Robot\'s list price of around $94,000 drops down a lot more in reason.

The bad news is Autodesk will continue arm twisting the users. Competition between software companies is always good for the end user in terms of product development & pricing. Besides Autodesk always gets out superficial changes every six months in their software with every new version. Their products are more like DVD players which updates with insignificant changes.

Redman

[quote]geoffhecht said:
I\'d disagree with sentry65. If you look at the history of Autodesk\'s acquisitions, they have never discontinued a product line. They will continue to develop XSI, as they wouldn\'t risk alienating it\'s user base. Maya and Max, may get some of XSI\'s features, but I doubt all three will be developed into a super program. Seasoned users, wouldn\'t want to learn a completely new program anyways.

Maybe the only thing that comes out of this is Face Robot\'s list price of around $94,000 drops down a lot more in reason.[/quote]

well it\'s happened before. Softimage came out with XSI instead of just updating softimage|3D. Maya was the product of Power Animator and Dynamation.

How long has 3ds max been overdue for a rewrite?
Maya\'s getting a bit old these days too.
XSI has some good life left though.

No one wants to relearn software, but look at Modo. You can make an app have all sorts of interfaces and that only makes sense for a next gen app. IMO that\'s the point - if there\'s universal interface customization to work however you want, then none of us will ever have to start from scratch again and can just step into the new app.

Of course they\'ll continue to support the current software for a good long while.

Look at how much the field and technology has changed. Look how efficient and fast programs can be like mudbox. These days with 64 bit sofware, GPU acceleration and offloaded processing, multi-core chips, physic engines, and how capable direct X is - IMO 3d apps can really benefit for having their foundation being written with those things in mind from the very start.

Do you guys really think we\'ll all be using XSI 2018, Maya 2018, and 3ds Max 2018?

Are the smaller 3D apps still going to be around, still fully funded and making money?
No one thinks a lot of them will merge or get bought out over time?

I swear every single time there\'s a change in the industry, everyone says it\'ll be the end and ruin everything. I just don\'t see that happening. There\'s too much demand for 3d graphics everywhere for the industry to not still prosper

I do not know what to say no to this terrible news.
That dirt!!

Thanks Autodesk!!!!
To that compete if you can buy all.
And we users are the most affected.
Buy Now zBrush, Modo.....

Thats a 50% min price hike for XSI in Europe then.
The only reason I was thinking about buying XSI was because it didn\'t belong to the IMOHO thieving Autodesk organisation.

Dinosaur mating

Possibly it is a very very bad news for xsi users.

Do people really think pre-rendered non-interactive 2D pixel video or vector Flash are the most cutting edge options people will ever get for their final renders? Do people really think there won\'t be a realtime 3D graphics display format that emerges in the next 10 years?

IMO Autodesk is gearing up for the day when they start competing with game engines. Who here doesn\'t think in 10 years, you won\'t buy your \"3d software\" from Epic or ID Software? Their game engines already have creation, texturing, and animation tools built in and are getting better with each release taking advantage. All the current 3D apps are pretty much stuck with openGL\'s limitations.

Ironically, the most innovative creation tools to come out lately for 3D software are all realtime or near realtime physics based animation tools...

I don\'t think realtime rendering/effects will take over software rendering anytime soon, but as the technology leans more and more towards that trend it\'s just a matter of time before 3D software can no longer afford to be 6-7 years behind with realtime viewport display technology Like it\'s been for the past 10 or so years. It\'s going to need the latest graphics engines in order to ride the realtime wave.

IMO in the future cutting edge game engines will be the foundation of the content creation tools, not the other way around like it\'s always been.

hmmm... i wonder why the text just above this post sounds like autodesk propaganda....

[quote]stealth_kid said:
hmmm... i wonder why the text just above this post sounds like autodesk propaganda....[/quote]

no, it was me saying I think Autodesk and any 3D app that wants to survive will eventually have to address realtime gaming engines or risk losing marketshare. They need to start rethinking how they develop their software with the latest realtime technology in mind.

Those guys as well as gpu developers are the ones really doing the sweeping innovations right now, not the guys making a new polygon tool.

Im thinking if Autodesk keeps taking all other popular products, Autodesk will become like Microsoft and keep a Monopoly? This might increase the prices of the software products.

But anyway it will make a good connection between all the products. But this time its only real time rendering... And i agree with sentry65, Autodesk might take all the key 3d apps and release a new single application package for everything in the future.

Long live the monopoly!
Autodesk = Microsoft
Damn!
I will send an email to the committee in the American Antitrust.

i dont think that will happen. Autodesk is a holding comppany for applications. They hardly ever actually make the software much better.

This is certainly bad for one reason. The reason is we all work form same horse and they in turn get monopoly. This said i think modo will become a full package they have thet in works they just cant start all in one go because they have to live.

Time to build a new app?

Anyway i see the race its about babelizing 3d graphics.

[quote]sentry65 said:
They need to start rethinking how they develop their software with the latest realtime technology in mind.[/quote]
autodesk people don\'t think. they buy. autodesk people don\'t develop. they buy.

[quote]sentry65 said:
no, it was me saying I think Autodesk and any 3D app that wants to survive will eventually have to address realtime gaming engines or risk losing marketshare.[/quote]
i see your point. in other words, autodesk\'s way of thinking is something like that: \"we\'re stupid and we know it. everybody else knows it. we\'re unable to create anything and we know it. everybody else knows it. there are some smart people out there who will eventually leave us behind. way behind. we know it and everybody else knows it. we cannot allow that. therefore we buy everything, and we mean everything. we MUST own averything and if we cannot have it than no one can have it. we\'d rather see it destroyed.\" what they fail to see is that the world outside their offices doesn\'t match their vision of the universe. is autodesk preparing for the future? i don\'t think so. take a look at these:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211300351&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All ;
http://www.physorg.com/news143902428.html ;
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=112538&preview=false ;
my guess is things will change quite a bit. there is no way autodesk has a place in that future, because their mentality is something from the 13th century. while they are busy becomming hysterical about their world beeing near its end, others are busy with actual progress. there is absolutely no way 3d applications will be better or cheaper if they all come from autodesk. any time, any place, i\'d rather buy from nvidia or anybody else who\'s not autodesk.

is it so bad for users, thought?
when it happened with maya, comments were so negative, as if maya was dead or something. that was the time in wich my interest in xsi grew, i`ve seen it in school and it seemed more organic, more logical to me. soo i go on and buy xsi 6.2 foundation. by the time xsi 7 went out, i found out it

I was sad when Autodesk Aquired Maya form Alias and have seen the inovation on each new release go down hill. I am now Depressed that XSI has been aquired as well. I hope for the best but I really do fear the worst. XSI 7 Is the best 3D product on the market in MY OPINION. I think it was just starting to scratch the surface on its potential. Now it will be a still born child. My only hope is that XSI will now become the industy standard because it has the best user interface and is very artist friendly. Hopefully more people will integrate into their pipeline. I Learned Maya first and I have always liked it. However I love softimage because I can do work in half that time that it would take in Maya.

[quote]pikey said:
is it so bad for users, thought?
[/quote]
yes, it is. take a look at the history of autodesk products. like autocad, for example, it\'s one of the biggest waste of disk space i\'ve ever seen. same goes for maya version 8.0 through 2009, except 8.5. 3dmax doesn\'t really matter anyway. xsi 7 has some very usefull new tools and improvements, but if it becomes autodesk\'s the best you can expect it\'s new buttons that do nothing new. oh, and that crappy way of creating primitives by clicking in the viewport. here\'s a quick quiz: name one usefull and new technology or way of doing things developed by autodesk. just one. from the beginning of time till present days. just one.

it\'s my understanding that the \"aquisition\" is not complete, they\'re just talking about it. don\'t get your hopes high, though, unfortunatelly canadians are not renown for their professional pride or for having a spine, wave enough money in their faces and they\'ll do whatever you wish. i don\'t mean it as an insult, it\'s just something i noticed. do a google search to see how many really cool products were made in canada and now are the property of others. i live in canada, i know what i\'m talking about. sad, really sad. :(

I don\'t have faith in Autodesk or their management making a next gen app, but I do have faith in the XSI, maya, and 3dsmax team together making a good nextgen app.

I\'m going to reserve judgment until I see it.

We might all not like MS, but we have to still thank them for buying softimage and forcing them to port it to WinNT. They also got the ball rolling for openGL running on windows and help making it the standard......though those things probably would have happened eventually anyway.

dude.... it doesn\'t matter how good the engineers and the programmers are, as long as the management is crap. it\'s not the smart guys who control how things go, it\'s the lowlifes with just one thought ringing inside their heads: \"i want more money! more!! more!!! the hell with everything else!\"

well sure

if they want to make money, eventually they\'re going to have to put out a competitive product or become obsolete.

I dont think XSI seemed to get much funding from Softimage/Avid. XSI does have some great tools but very few people knew about them because they did such a poor job marketing and educating Maya and Max users. They did nothing for years marketing wise. XSI was somewhat of a dying ship there and depending on the direction of Autodesk with XSI at least now they should have some budgets for developers and maybe even some marketing.

Regarding companies that just buy up new technology that would pretty much be all of them: Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Google, Corel, etc. Just about every major product put out by all of these companies was a small company\'s (or guy\'s) app before it was purchased, built up and then pushed out. A lot of the small purchases of technology bits go unnoticed because there is no announcement. But they are there and that stuff ends up in the versions down the road.

We all thought Autodesk would do a Max/Maya mix at some point and maybe they are. Or maybe they intend to take all the best techs from these and make a new app (which would take years after acquiring all the assets).

It does feel like there will be no real competition for Autodesk though. Lets hope autodesk pulls what google has been able to do so well; take other people\'s technology and build upon it into new exciting applications.