CompuServe Messages

>but Studio looks better and better when you compare it to programs costing 10 >times as much. I work with Softimage every day, and find this $35,000+ program >to be maddeningly obtuse and buggy. (And if you think you're getting "nickel and >dimed" by IPAS developers, how'd you like to pay an additional $1000 just so >Softimage can use .TGA files as texture maps?) I'm going to reply for two reasons — one, I hate to see this thread end up being an OS war thread (hey guys, start your own!), particularly when I'm as confused as anyone about what direction, what platform, what software my company has to run in the coming months (let alone years), and two, I'm starting to see some thoughts coming together here I'd sure like Gary (but he probably won't) to comment on. I have no trouble with IPAS developers — either with the prices or the functions they offer. But like some others around here, I think some of the IPAS functions should have been core to the program itself (and I mentioned this nearly two years ago) and I think the development of those routines has effectively blocked any such addition to the program. Microsoft thinks nothing of adding in features that in the past were provided by third parties to fill the gaps in MS software — but I guess when you're that big you don't worry about offending anyone. It further muddies the waters when you have the Yost group as primary IPAS developers — there is a big conflict of interest there! My own wish list is modest — just dynamics and a spline/patch modeler. I've had that list well before the end of the deadline for wishes in R4, it was a reasonable request back then, and apparently it will not be fulfilled anytime soon. I know that I can't make that wish known for R5, because the way the wind is blowing that will be considered "something some third party somewhere can certainly provide for you at some point for some price". Of course, IPAS can be made so open ended that the same can be said for ANYONE's wish, so I guess eventually we'll just be told "hey, the system can be programmed to do that." I guess an analogy would be that if I wanted to fly to Orlando I would go to the airline and they'd say "Hey, you can buy a ticket — the plane's out there and it can go anywhere you want. Of course, you'll have to either fly it there yourself (after spending money and time to learn how to do that), or find yourself some third party pilot who might want to go in that direction some time that's convenient for her, at a price that may or may not be acceptable to you. But our airline planes can go ANYWHERE!"