And Then There Was One...
Filed under 3D, Animation, Software
Wow! Autodesk purchased Softimage.
There was a time when there were 3 companies that battled in high-end 3D animation software. The competition was fierce and every year brought new features meant to outdo the other packages.
No more...all three software packages (Maya, 3ds Max, and Xsi) are now owned by Autodesk.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It seems silly for one company to keep all three packages since they have so much overlap.
My prediction: Maya will become the only 3D package Autodesk sells, with features from the other packages integrated into Maya.
What are your predictions? Post your thoughts in the comments. First with the correct prediction wins a prize!
Comments (5)
One package to rule them all...
This is plain crazy. For a country where politicians love to sing the praises of the capitalist entrepreneur, we sure do seem to have a lot of industries boiling down to just two (or in this case one) player.
Posted by Kelvin | October 24, 2008 6:18 AM
Posted on October 24, 2008 06:18
You can't count out long standing quiet successes like Blender, Houdini, and Cinema 4D. Hash recently dropped out of the race, but out of nowhere runners like Daz Studio, or even some of the game authoring packages such as UnrealEd have an important part to play in the ecosystem.
Posted by Nick | October 25, 2008 2:02 PM
Posted on October 25, 2008 14:02
@ Nick
I think the death of Hash Animation master is a bit exaggerated.
I'm still using AM. I understood that they were not attending a lot of the big shows due to a ROI concern, but no news as to their demise. In fact they converted their business model to a yearly $49 subscription plan instead of a purchase/upgrade plan which makes it more attractive to single users/boutique shops.
What part of the grapevine did you hear this from?
Posted by Kelvin | October 25, 2008 4:27 PM
Posted on October 25, 2008 16:27
Good point. I just checked their website, and they are selling it again - a few months ago the sales links seemed to be gone. Some things I heard from AM long-timers led me to believe they were refocusing on TWO, not on the software.
Posted by Nick | October 26, 2008 6:40 PM
Posted on October 26, 2008 18:40
I hope they stay in there. We need a strong middle tier of software resources. Lightwave nearly priced themselves out of the market (now $999 from a previous high of $2500 a few years ago). They may be next on the list, considering their financials aren't nearly as strong as they could be.
I need to get reacquainted with the small CGI packages again. Its been too long since I played around in the sandbox.
Posted by Kelvin | October 27, 2008 6:01 AM
Posted on October 27, 2008 06:01