In a surprise announcement, 3ds Max and Maya owner Autodesk has revealed that it has acquired Avid's Softimage business unit for $35 million, uniting three of the most-used and formerly competing 3D game art construction tools under the same roof.
A dominant player in the market, Autodesk acquired Maya creator Alias in early 2006, and since then has continued its expansion, also purchasing Mudbox creator Skybox in late 2007 and AI firm Kynogon in early 2008.
Softimage was founded in 1986 by Daniel Langlois; its flagship product is Softimage|XSI, an extensible 3D animation software solution used by game companies including Ubisoft, Capcom, and Sega as well as major CG companies.
However, the division is a reasonably small portion of Avid, which also produced industry-leading editing and media asset management software and hardware, and which evidently decided to divest its Softimage division to Autodesk.
According to an official statement released by the two companies, "Upon completion of the acquisition, Autodesk intends to continue developing and selling Softimage's core product line, while integrating certain Softimage technology into future versions of Autodesk solutions and products."
Autodesk plans to acquire and continue developing the following Softimage products:
- SOFTIMAGE|XSI: Including XSI Essentials, XSI Advanced, XSI Academic, XSI Mod Tool and the XSI software development kit.
- SOFTIMAGE|Face Robot: A complete software solution for easily rigging and animating 3D faces.
- SOFTIMAGE|Cat: This advanced character animation system is a plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max software. It is intended to be integrated into the 3ds Max
product line.
- SOFTIMAGE|Crosswalk: This interoperability solution is intended to be integrated with Autodesk's own interoperability technology."
Marc Petit, senior vice president of Autodesk Media & Entertainment, commented, "As we have demonstrated since the acquisition of Alias in 2006, we're committed to giving our customers choice when it comes to their 3D tools. We plan to maintain and grow the Softimage product line, and through Autodesk FBX provide better interoperability between Softimage products, 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya.
"FBX also provides interoperability between Softimage products and our specialized applications such as Autodesk Mudbox, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Autodesk ImageModeler and Autodesk Stitcher, as well as numerous third-party applications."
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As an XSI lover, I am very confused now. Not sure whether this is a good news or bad news. Softimage is known for meticulous development and beta testing, which is exactly Autodesk's opposite. Max and Maya are terribly buggy. They keep releasing service packs and productivity packs and creativity extensions and still its stability is nowhere close to XSI's. It is true that XSI was not very good integrationwise and not many rendering engines supported it and it had other shortcomings, but Autodesk could never implement Mental Ray nearly as efficiently as XSI. Rendering multiple passes in XSI is child's play, whereas they are releasing video courses on rendering passes/layers in Maya/Max and still it is unclear to many. Last but not least, XSI has easiest integration with ZBrush and because of tools like ultimapper, one does not even need Zmapper or stuff like that any more. The map generation can be done in XSI itself, which is much more convenient because then the user does not have to worry about how to make the map work with the destination 3D app. XSI is cheaper, faster, more robust, and with GigapolygonCoreII, it can handle a truly insane amount of geometry provided the resources are right. With all this now in the hands of Autodesk, I cannot say I feel very safe.
If Autodesk now starts making XSI 2009, 2010, 2011, and so on... with terribly buggy incomplete releases, it will truly be a sad thing for XSI users :(
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Last edited by shushens; October 24, 2008 at 06:06.
Wow, let's face it: Autodesk is becoming the EA of 3D modeling software. I'm not sure if this is a yay or nay announcement, since I use both XSI and Max. What next? Pixologic?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elix
Wow, let's face it: Autodesk is becoming the EA of 3D modeling software. I'm not sure if this is a yay or nay announcement, since I use both XSI and Max. What next? Pixologic?
What are you talking about man? EA does not dominate any more. UbiSoft is the leader. Has been since Sands of Time. Then there are other giants. EA is struggling to stay in the big picture with more and more Battlefields and FIFAs and Crickets and Maddens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cola
They have Max, Maya and Softimage. There is no way that can last. One or more of these will be absorbed.
Why man? They have not acquired just the software's source code, but also the entire developer/tester/tech-support/marketing/sales team. They will keep doing what they have been doing. Only it will say "Softimage is a regd. trademark of Autodesk Corp." or something like that. Or maybe it will say Autodesk XSI. But the rest will continue as is. That is what the spokesperson of Softimage said. Join XSIBase for more info/rumors.
If the last release of XSI was 6.5, I would say it is a dark day for XSI people. But XSI 7 is full of weird issues and bad bugs. I wish everyday I hadn't switched. But can't go back now. Softimage is not prompt with updates, neither do they believe in service packs. But Autodesk does. Maybe it will open a way for us users to get frequent updates and fixes for XSI. Also, Crosswalk is a very bad tool. It almost never gets the job done the way you want it, and by the time Crosswalk comes out for Max 2008, you are using Max 2009. So, this merger may bring some change for better in terms of compatibility. There is no XFrog plugin for XSI (that prehistoric one doesn't even count). Vue integration is non-standard. No Vray/FinalRender plugin (forever in beta stage ). No timely MentalRay updates. I could go on like this forever ...
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Last edited by shushens; October 26, 2008 at 06:34.
Why man? They have not acquired just the software's source code, but also the entire developer/tester/tech-support/marketing/sales team.
Well, it's just that somebody is going to look at the wages of the three teams and think how they can save money by having only two. Or maybe just one. I can't think of a software company that has three competing products all at the same level. At different levels sure, but three of the same thing?
Knowing from inside information that Max has only just started to make an income, the chances are that they are trying to harvest all the upper end software to squeeze out all the competition.
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well maybe we all could see face robot after all
That could be very true blurs funtoy , but I do wonder of their marketing strategy. . . This is an odd duck to say the least. Good or bad when someone says what's the better software? now you can just say autodesk
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). No timely MentalRay updates. I could go on like this forever ...
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