#Animation Master
Another thing to think about… the very existence of a plug-in architecture
might work against the incorporation of features into new releases of a
product. For example, if lens flares became the rage after one release of 3DS,
and then a company came out with a very nice lens flare package and all those
clamoring for lens flares bought that, then "lens flares" might not pop up on
the next wish list. The existence of the plug-in reduces the "squeaks" that
might otherwise percolate up to the design team.
Now the Yost Group has graciously stated that they'll step aside and remove
their own plug-ins from the market when it becomes apparent that a third-party
has developed their own comparable (or better) product. Indeed, this happened
with lens flares. I'm sure few competitors among the IPAS developers excluding
the Yost Group will be so kind to each other, unless the market compels them to
yank a product for sheer inferiority. 🙂
We've seen similar conflicts arise in the AutoCAD market, no? Some version of
AutoCAD is missing a feature, a third party develops an add-on to deliver it,
then Autodesk determines they need that feature to compete, so they develop
their own similar feature as a built-in to the product. So when you beg
Autodesk to "fold in" the features of certain IPAs routines, you're going to
affect all those nice IPAS-making companies. 🙂