#SGI renderer
25 messages in this thread
There were rumours at one time about SGI renderers for 3dstudio. Did anything
ever become of that? Is that still in the future or has it happened?
Hi Michael,
<< Did anything ever become of that? >>
Nothing has been announced yet. Nothing is shipping yet.
<< Is that still in the future or has it happened? >>
It hasn't happened. Sorry, Autodesk does not talk about possible future
products, features, or shipdates.
jonas[adesk]
Pardon me, but if Autodesk doesn't talk about possible future products
and features then why was the SGI render-only project announced here
on the forum — probably before much (if any) code had even been
written ?
As for ship dates, then there is the matter of the Animator Studio
trial balloons Adesk has been floating, a product whoose composition
is full of questions and which is not scheduled to ship for another
quarter at least.
The " Autodesk doesn't discuss . . . " corporate boilerplate you tag
on to some of these replies is begining to sound kinda cold and fake.
A simple "i don't know" or "i can't say" would be a lot warmer, and
honest .
BTW, *LOVE* your recent implementation of messaging library file
descriptions in answer to FAQ's — keep up the good work. I'd still
like to see a section or thread devoted solely to new upload
decriptions for us daily high-speed TAPCIS (and other autopilots)
browsers.
Until Jonas and Brian get back on Monday, I'll give you my impression
of what's going on here.
Re the SGI renderer: SGI came to Autodesk before NAB and offered to
do this port THEMSELVES for Autodesk, as a research project towards
an eventual SGI-based offline rendering station. They wanted to
announce it at NAB, and we consented. Why? Since it was such a
minor product sales and technology-wise (render only, etc), none of
us thought that it would be a problem to announce that the work was
being begun. Was that a mistake? Who knows. The bottom line is
that they've been working on it ever since then, so if it was a
mistake, it was an honest one. For specifics about its status, you'd
have to ask Jonas or Brian.
Re Animator Studio: Since I've got nothing directly to do with that
project, I can't specifically comment. I _can_ say that the 2D
animation market segment on the PC is not remotely as competitive as
the 3D animation segment. Therefore, there isn't as much pressure to
keep the cards as close to the vest as with the 3D market.
Remember, a lot of these decisions are very pragmatic, driven by the
need to keep certain information confidential from key competitors.
If there was no competitive environment, it wouldn't be necessary to
keep anything confidential. That said, if there was no competitive
environment, the software wouldn't be worth doodoo. It's one of
those highly-sharpened double-edged swords whose blades we're all
slowly and inexorably sliding down.
Ouch,
– G
>> It's one of those highly-sharpened double-edged swords whose blades
we're all slowly and inexorably sliding down.
I always wondered why they said 3DS users were on the bleeding edge
of things… <g>
Thanks for the insight, I think you've made my point. I was mainly
protesting the use of the corporate boilerplate which I felt had
begun to ring hollow in the face of obvious inconsistancies,
unecessarily undermining Adesk credibility. You have to stay flexible
and human and wiley and tough to compete in this biz, sometimes it's
not clear where to draw the line regarding whether or not to talk
about a future product. It all makes sense from your perspective. But
out here I see Jonas deflecting questions with an ironclad rule which
seemed not to always apply. I had hoped it would inspire Jonas and
company to respond to stuff they couldn't talk about with a more
humane and conversational face and tone. I guess I wanted them to be
more like *YOU* , Gary — just a style thing, an attitude, (real or
perceived?).
I, likewise, am not a fan of corporate boilerplate. However, it's
just one of those artifacts of corporate life.
"Discorporate and come with me, shifting, drifting, cloudless,
starless. Velvet valleys and a saphire sea. Wa Wa"
– G
<<"Discorporate and come with me, shifting, drifting, cloudless, starless.
Velvet valleys and a saphire sea. Wa Wa">> I just love multi-media! …(g)…
Russ
Insight Development
Hi Bruce,
<< But out here I see Jonas deflecting questions with an ironclad rule which
seemed not to always apply. >>
This is true. In general, AutoDesk Product Support, will always give the
company line of ".. mum's the word…".. However, the product manager for each
product can dictate how much you hear about a product prior to ship. With
respect to Animation Studio, the product manager is encouraging the discussion
of the product on ASOFT. However, with respect to 3DS and it's future, it will
continue to be mum…
<< I had hoped it would inspire Jonas and company to respond to stuff they
couldn't talk about with a more humane and conversational face and tone. >>
I've been chastised for this before. I apologize to all offended.
I will continue to try to improve my conversational tone here on this forum.
jonas
Jonas,
Thanks for the insights, always interested to get a glimpse of the thinking
behind how things are evolving. I doubt if anyone was offended, I just thought
it was getting a little chilly in here, that's all.
Let's talk about Animation Studio, then.
Animator Pro users get an upgrade deal. Animation Studio, however; is not a
superset of Pro.
New Ani Studio customers therefore, pay full price for less capability than
upgrade customers.
Why not include a copy of Ani Pro in the non-upgrade package of Ani Studio so
that everyone is on a level 8/24 bit features playing field ?
Bruce N. Goren
Hi Bruce,
<< Let's talk about Animation Studio, then.. >>
Sorry to say but I'm completely out of that loop. Jeremy Hubble likes to demo
Animation Studio and he hangs out here. Maybe he;d like to answer your
questions.
jonas[adesk]
<<Let's talk about Animation Studio, then. Animator Pro users get an upgrade
deal. Animation Studio, however; is not a superset of Pro. New Ani Studio
customers therefore, pay full price for less capability than upgrade
customers.>>
Bruce,
While AASTUDIO is not a superset of AAPRO, it is most definitely not a subset.
I do not feel new users get less capability at all. In fact I feel they get
much more, it just happens that some of the capabilities are different.
Your suggestion about bundling AAPRO and AASTUDIO has already been investigated
by the AAS Product Manger. I don't know what his decision on that is, however.
-Brian
Brian,
I did not mean to imply that AASTUDIO is by itself less capable. AASTUDIO will
be a fine product with much more advanced features than AAPRO. It is not a
superset of AAPRO, nor a subset, it is *different*.
Therefore, "upgrade" deal customers have two *different programs*, the
combination of which gives them more capability than new full price customers
who only get AASTUDIO. That's why I think the only fair thing to do is to
include AAPRO in the "new customer" bundle.
I'm glad to hear that the AAS Product Manager has already looked into this.
Bruce N. Goren
Bruce,
Thanks for making your point a little clearer. Yes, it would seem that existing
AAPRO users get to keep a little more functionality. Some might say that is a
reward for being an existing customer.
On the other had, anyone can go out right now and purchase AAPRO, probably
relatively cheaply, and then upgrade to AASTUDIO next year. So I don't think
anyone is being treated unfairly.
-Brian
<< "upgrade" deal customers >>
Your arguments about subsets and supersets of capabilities in Ani-Pro vs.
Animator Studio justifies the carefull semantics that I hear Autodesk
imploying. I am told that it is not an "upgrade" but a "migration" offer. <G>
-Just another dealer
Paul,
<"migration offer">
Glorious doublespeak !
Reminds me of when Nixon bombed Cambodia and called it a "protective reaction
strike" .
They'll say anything to justify a selfish decision.
They are only fooling themselves.
-Just another idiot writer and animator
>>I've been chastised for this before. I apologize to all offended. I
>>will continue to try to improve my conversational tone here on this
>>forum.
Ah, Jonas… You just can't win. Everybody wants you to tell them what's
planned for future releases, and then, when you all DO say something, then it
gets pulled from the release, they get steamed and say, well why did you tell
us it was there! You should just shift the blame. Instead of saying "Autodesk
dosn't talk about future releases," for 3DS just say, "I'd like to help, but
Bob Bennett will have me fired if I say ANYTHING!" <g>
Dave
Bruce,
You have some good points about the "ironclad boilerplate" that Autodesk has on
not discussing future projects, and inconsistencies with that. Here in the
Product Support department, we must adhere to that rule without fail. "Autodesk
does not talk about future …." is the policy of the company, and we follow
that policy strictly.
The problem is, not all other people follow that policy as strictly as Product
Support does. This is not under our control, and it does, as you point out,
occassionally lead to inconsistencies. It is these inconsistencies we are
actually trying to avoid. If everyone followed the policy to the letter, they
would not exist. But you are right, that would definitely make the company
appear less human.
Bottom line: Jonas, Nik, myself, and anyone else who logs in from Product
Support will adhere to the non-discussion policy as strictly as we can. Others
may be a little looser with information, but that is not under our control.
-Brian
P.S. Re: SGI. As this is a joint project with SGI and ourselves, we announced
the intent to develop a joint product. Specific details still fall under the
non-discussion rule.
P.P.S. Re: AASTUDIO. ye, we appear to be discussing that heavily. This is
because it was recently previewed at two trade shows, and has been in the
public eye. We are only discussion things that have been previously made public
at those trade shows.
P.P.P.S
<<The " Autodesk doesn't discuss . . . " corporate boilerplate you tag on to
some of these replies is begining to sound kinda cold and fake. A simple "i
don't know" or "i can't say" would be a lot warmer, and honest .>><< I had
hoped it would inspire Jonas and company to respond to stuff they couldn't talk
about with a more humane and conversational face and tone>>
You are right, it is a boilerplate answer. If you can think of a nicer way to
say the same thing, I am open for discussions. I at least always try to start
with " I am sorry, but…". In the end, though, it is the same result. the
person does not get an answer. (And if I said "I don't know", as you suggested,
I would probably be lying.)
-Brian
The press releases for the SGI port were shipping in volume because of NAB '94,
due to the insatiable demands of grubby magazine writers who turn up their nose
at a $250,000 booth unless there's some major announcement at every show. 🙂
As for boilerplate, it only gets tiring when you've read it thirty times. The
first time you hear it, it sounds like a polite pat answer. 🙂 What do you
want them to say?
John,
Grubby eh ? Well, all they have to do to save some of that quarter million is
to put a big bowl of M&M's at the info desk. Sugar and chocolate at the end of
a long day trudging the corridors work better attract mode magic than vaporware
or pre-emptive announcements.
You're right of course about the cynicism bred by the familiar, but a little
friendly and conversational variety would keep them from sounding like smug
spin doctors for Darth Vader to those of us who read this stuff every day.
In all the Adesk crew do a fine job, I'm not looking to stir up anything other
than a minor attitude adjustment. Gary handles this NDA stuff best of all,
he'll say something like "I can't really talk about future releases now, but
you are sure gonna be happy when R-X ships". With the exception of the naive
and the novice, (in the extreme minority on this forum) I think the E-mail
equivelent of a handshake, a smile, a reasuring wink, is really all some
customers are looking for when they ask about future stuff that they probably
know can't be discussed. Everybody who gets into this cyberfamiliarity we have
on Asoft likes to think they are just a little bit special and deserving of a
hint beyond the corporate line. Gary plays the software evangelist role
perfectly; keeps it honest, friendly, fun. I just thought the corporate dudes
needed to lighten up a bit.
Bruce N. Goren
Speaking as a minion of Darth, :-), I'd say there's a lot to be said for One
Standard Official Way of Saying Things. As soon as you start to hedge or imply
or wink or give somebody the impression that product X will be available by Y
on platform Z, you're in trouble. After all, it came from an official employee
of Autodesk on an official forum on Compuserve, which imght as well have been
in print. See what I mean? Here at Syndesis, I train the new employees with a
"cheat book" that has the right way to explain everything. Just yesterday, for
example, a customer called and demanded to talk to the president. He told me
that he'd called three times in the last two days (uhm, sir, we weren't open
Thursday through Sunday) and that no one he talked to had the answers he needed
(dealer price, availability, etc.) although the questions he told me he asked
could've been answered by anyone from the receptionist on down. And I talked
to everyone in the office to confirm something hadn't gone wrong, and sure
enough, they confirmed that he called last Wednesday but that they did give him
the simple answers he required.
Those darn customers, they're always right, even when they're wrong. 🙂 With
all the customers Autodesk has, with all the people out there who live life on
the bleeding edge of technology who can redeem themselves in the eyes of the
boss by making good decisions on the next hardware and software outlay, I doubt
they want to admit personal creativity into the explanation of future product
releases.
John,
Can't argue with you on that one. But isn't an abusive customer the exception,
rather than the rule ? All the Bozo filters in the world can't prevent
vulgarians from disturbing the peace. I was not implying that we yes people to
death or imply promises . . . just that a little common sense and good will
goes a long way. I may have a bunker mentality when it comes to national
defense, but in personal and business communications I think as much openess as
possible is the way to go. You can't stay in business long if you cater to the
least common denominator and assume most customers are a**holes seeking
undeserved advantage.
Bruce N. Goren
My wife often accuses me of wearing rose-colored glasses. I do assume that my
customers are benevolent, and I try to encourage everyone here to deal with
them in that way… until they prove themselves otherwise, at which point we
simply become polite. 🙂 It's one thing to be nice, it's another to wave a
red cape at the fanatics who love to consider pre-announcements as enforceable
as a printed contract. Witness the debacle about the spline editor.
John,
Fair enough. Amazing how the flamers used legalistic language to huff
and puff about the non-appearance of the spline modeler and ignored
the fine print boilerplate that ADESK and most all publishers include
in thier copyrights to the effect that they reserve the right to
improve or revise the programs as they see fit . . . etc. Still, the
noise generated by a few annoying fanatics is the price we should be
willing to pay for free and open speech about polotics, and products.
Adesk should ignore the vulger minority and trust the good common
sense of the majority. We good citizens should not suffer because of
a few rotten apples. Open sensible discourse and the free exchange of
ideas and information should not be chilled for fear of insensing a
few who simply don't "get it" .
In addition to what Jonas said, I can tell you that the SGI engineers
have been hard at work on the project for quite awhile.