This is a very sad day…
Stink. I have colleagues who like xsi and until now found it welcome relief from the buggy beast Maya. Now this…Agreed very very sad indeed.
AC
Whoa! This is total craziness! First Max and Maya… and now XSI? :shock:
Well, I’m very happy to say today that I’m a modo user 
Hopefully, Autodesk won’t swallow them up too, haha 
… Oh dear…
-Jeremy
So I guess Autodesk just won their game of CG Monopoly. Yikes.
So, are they going to maintain THREE completely incompatible 3d platforms?
i am using 6.5 and was considering an update to 7, the ICE thing really sounds great.
but now i better wait wats happening 
this could mean:
a) avid drops softimage and uses the best things for maya
or
b) avid continues softimage with full power and this could mean better linux support, because to be honest: softimage does NOT run on linux, although they tell so. it runs on redhat, and nothing else. on debian some crashes even destroyed my files , on other distributions it does not run at all
i am hoping for the later, but i’ll better wait before spending a lot of money into a dead product
well, i am following sidefx’s houdini development quite a wile now, and as there is a mac version, which is not for softimage, maybe its time for a change
Hmmm…
“Under the terms of the transaction, the total value of the consideration to be paid by Avid to Microsoft and to employees of SOFTIMAGE in substitution of their stock options is valued at $285 (US) million.”
“Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID), announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Autodesk to acquire substantially all of the assets of Avid’s Softimage business unit for approximately $35 million.”
Wow, they sure did well on that deal.
XSI has the distinction of being the only high end 3D package with (IMHO) an interface even more bizarre than Blender’s. As for “it only runs under Redhat” – it’s not like you can install it on any old version of Windows either.
podperson, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
To its users, XSI’s is the most consistent and efficient UI among all major 3d apps.
That’s funny, I was just gonna say the same thing about Blender… 
Ugh, terrible terrible news.
As for the interface, the best interface is the one you’re used to for a couple of years.
On the bright side, at least we have siggraph parties on boats now too.
I do wonder if Autodesk is acquiring as much tech as possible to maybe build a new composite product that leverages the strengths of each. I’d like to think there was a long term goal like that.
Problem is… Autodesk just doesn’t seem like that type of company.
Nice, so CAT for 3dsMax will not die.
Its like Autodesk is this demonic monster, or a Persian Warlord in spartan times, ripping the world apart in faraway places, swallowing armies into its own, slowly creeping towards our homes, until one day we have to draw our swords and beat the crap out of it. like darth vader and his evil empire…out of control
Im just glad Im not Jeremy. I dont know what the xsi eula is currently like, but if you print it out and strangle it, that will give it an idea of what fate lies before it…Autodesk license terms are the most user unfriendly of them all.
AC
Does the USA still not have Anti Monopoly Laws?
Or if they have, how comes that Autodesk has been allowed to swallow two of the major competitors in their sector grml
well, that at least will make Silo3D much more attractive and help it grow
with houdini and cinema more or less involved in every major movie production today, you cannot really call this monopoly. silo is just a modeller and will remain for quite a while (and its buggy like hell, which is a reason why i own it, but never used, i can’t live with losing work). with modo, cheetah, carrara and more, there is more then enough joice on the market. and dont forget animation master, which is a great tool, but unfortunately not usable in real life, because of its no polygon way you can’t exchange data with other apps.
i personally found, that although there are the big players, even they are not the best for any case. if you’re somehow involved in 3d, you’ll always end up using a couple of applications (unless you have a budget problem ) - so the only problem i have with this situation is: will they slowly let softimage die, or will the continue full effort, as they actually do parallel on 3d studio and maya.
Autodesk internal discussion about Softimage
language warning and if you understand german at all it won’t be funny…
also obviously you need to be familiar with Maya as well…
cheers.