I would’ve been MORE than ok if AD came out and said “There won’t be an upgrade this year, because we’re overhauling it and rewriting it. It will be 64bit and have these new features etc etc”. If they did nothing but give me a roadmap of what they’re planning, then I could plan accordingly. If they’re just gonna give up on Maya, I’m not going to start my studio with a dying software. I’m gonna go towards something that is constantly listening to its users! Heck, I’d even pay for a roadmap. Take some notes from SideFX or The Foundry.

If I end up getting screwed down the road because of this, I’m done with AD.

I just hope that development picks up again, I’d hate to see it slowly die away. Everyone’s got their preference, but mine’s with Maya.

I think they are right about one thing though. The future is more about 3D package
with 2D features rather than Nuke rendering 3D. 3D environment, relighting,
normal mapping and projections is all good, but real time rendering is coming
and it needs all the 3D info to have a job done. Unless Nuke becomes
another Maya, it won’t happen there.

Can’t wait to try Toxik. I’m kind of excited and in the gloomy environment,
it’s a rare sight

Amidst my frustrated tone, I’m not entirely blaming Autodesk; yet. My rant is more a reminder not to screw a good marketing ploy up, because I think amidst Nuke’s smart marketing to date – Autodesk has one shot left at success.

There is nothing wrong with maximizing profit, but a careful mix of short and long term considerations are required to successfully make it over the long run. Squeezing your profits from incumbent platforms is your best option while developing a next-gen app, especially if the core of that incumbent app requires more work to make competitive with future workflows than the next-gen candidate.

Sitting on the best or second best next-generation compositor (jury is out) to squeeze more profits at this point comes down to giving up ground to the competition. That choice today is simply, “I’d rather make a dollar today than have any successful compositing application tomorrow.” I know the stakes are high for any CFO from the standpoint Autodesk is taking a hit on Wall Street, so it’s not like the right choice would be so obvious. Frankly, investors are probably even commending all their rapid cuts which just re-enforces and end-game marketing and sales loss.

As if Wall Street wasn’t enough of a burden, I’m sure it doesn’t require much research to come to the conclusion systems units inside Autodesk will play whatever internal politics possible to ensure their job security, in the short term. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they understand the value of Toxik far better than anyone else inside Autodesk, sans development.

You have to know your enemy to take a real shot at them, right? If I were in systems today, I’d probably be pulling talented developers off Toxik to patch the hull on a Titanic. I’d be saying we can’t penetrate the market the way we want to because we’re behind on key developments, therefore we need more development to create that sales opportunity. Forget the matter that I’d probably know that at the end of the day, all I’d be doing is trying to make an app that costs at least 25 times what Toxik or Nuke does… to do what Toxik or Nuke does. Maybe when the time finally came, I’d orchestrate a venture capital buyout of the app and put a Quantel sign on the door of my new office. Upon finally exhausting international sales over a couple of years, I’d then retire young. Ahhhhh, what a life.

Agency clientele care less today about finishing on a flame than ever. Undoubtedly it’s still the finest tool for a supervised online and mastering session, but the price is entirely prohibitive for this purpose alone. Therefore, we see shops handling these sessions on legacy flames acquired on the used market or uncompressed Final Cut Pro systems. I used to be asked all the time, even by music video clients… “you have a flame, right?” I don’t think I’ve heard that question in over 4 years. As for a features standpoint, I think it’s to the point where even some studio supervisors would be concerned if the majority of compositing was occurring in flame. The exceptions would be work such as digital cosmetics, for which the platform is incredibly well suited for; but today’s era of multichannel float EXR comp work and network rendering (even a standard in commercials now) again makes the viability of this platform fractional in comparison to it’s price… even at the flare price.

I’m out and about all the time. 3 years ago, people looked at me like I was mad when telling them we’ve practically abandoned our flame and are all about Toxik. I also know folks who, at the same time were getting the same looks while they talked about Nuke. Lately I’ve been the one who’s surprised as I’m hearing everyone else talking about abandoning their flames… but it’s Nuke they’re diving into… because they don’t even understand what the hell Toxik is. This trend doesn’t indicate a development problem, but a marketing, sales and PR problem.

Look, I know I’m slinging mud here – even at a company who’s product I’m 110% behind, but again – the stakes are high and there’s one shot left to get it right. The bundle is an incredible marketing tactic. Right now all these future Maya purchases and subscription updates are about to place a ton of Toxik into great shops. But nobody is going to use it if they don’t know what to do with it. We need to see solid tutorial DVDs, training programs and press. Then we need to see a $5,000 IO & conform module option a la flame, and we need to see that good ‘ol fashioned Discreet Logic sales activity pulling veteran flamers in for reprogramming. After all, it’s them who will be at the end of the pipe complaining about not being able to mod those damn Nuke splines and keys on the fly

@ ToxikD – hmmm, we’re still having a hard time understanding how Flare is a good bet, even for less than $40K. I think this is the option for larger shops knee deep into flame that need to expand their support workflow for less than the price of more flames. As for pricing, it’ll be hard to undercut a full featured Maya and Toxik license for a sliver under the price of Nuke. Success or failure will come down to whether marketing really takes this bundle seriously, or let’s it go the way of other cg apps former comp systems; Eddy, Wavefront, whatever’s in Softimage these days, etc. The difference this time is Toxik really is a solid platform, rather than something that was designed to add value or was developed too early to take advantage of enabling technologies.

But hey… adding a flame-worthy, DPX compatible IO & conform module to Toxik as a $5,000 option (plus whatever hardware spec is required)… now that’s enough to shiver some boots.