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Autodesk aquires Naiad


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.. . But you don't need the whole company to change their minds, just the owners which I believe are a few people :)

usually yes .

but i do ( want to ) believe that the quarter-century proven philosophy of houdini has its Source just from those few people .

and a lot of investment too ( in money , hours spent , brain cells , sleepless nights , etcetera .. )

--

i want to believe .

=)

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That's what happens when money talks ...

But Dont forget, They didnt just sell Naiad, but they propably sold it with the knowledge, that Autodesk will kill Naiad and use some code in other software(s) :(

And this is really bad news for current naiad users, whos invested a lot of money for integrating Naiad to their pipeline.

and that's how I see Autodesk:

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I agree with you. I think if Autodesk integrates Naiad into their 3d apps, Naiad Buddies for competing 3d apps will disappear.

Smart move by them to try to keep studios to use their 3d apps if they don't already or switch to either of them if they are using Naiad in their pipeline.

Just my 2 cents :)

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money is power even in the reigns of the vfx.

someday autodesk will buy sesi, and the dark side will consume you all

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA <-- evil laugh

Sentinel Prime ? is it you ??

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I think this is pretty bad news for Houdini - but really bad news for Realflow and other 3rd party FX plug-in shelves like Thinking Particles/Fume FX who were looking to expand capability.

I think you could expect a Naiad FX shelf in the Autodesk packages in coming releases - with water, smoke, fire, soft and rigid bodies - maybe more?

Realflow should be pretty worried - as Naiad by most measures offers superior performance and results, and if it came bundled with a core package it would be difficult/impossible to compete on price. Fume FX - should also be worried, but currently I don't think Naiad/Autodesk have a production quality volumetric renderer, but only a matter of time, surely?

Arguably Houdini has increased it's market share since Houdini 9, for a number of reasons - but an important one was the poor FX capabilities of the core packages. I think what's worrying is that most studios are built upon a Maya/Max/Softimage backbone - and then using Houdini as the FX component. I think it's fair to say less people will be willing/or need to make the jump to Houdini from Maya/Max if a Naiad FX shelf could offer very decent FX results in a native package.

Houdini luckily retains the advantage of it's procedural approach, which will keep loyalists - and people will still convert because of the functionality you just can't get in the other packages. But for the industry in general it's pretty sad to see Autodesk just acquire another competitor.

Anyway... some ramblings..

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There are a few areas where Houdini could shine in the future. Handling massive datasets is one of them. I'd love to see some clever approaches to dealing with huge sims, geometries and such things. Mantra is also coming along nicely and I think it has become a very good renderer.

One of the next big things may be serious fem solvers and I hope sesi will jump in early.

Perhaps a few more exotic 'toy' solvers would also be a good thing. They don't have to be production-ready but if they are there to take apart I'm sure the community would pick up on it.

Personally I haven't used Naiad but I've worked in places where they have and my impression was that it's not the wonder-tool it's been portrayed as. The same thing goes for Arnold by the way. Having such functionality in one unified, beautiful package is hard to beat, even if it may be slower here and there.

Edited by Macha
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Yeah, I think SESI has a challenge in understanding where it wants to go next - whether they continue to refine and introduce FX components or they try and sell Houdini to other aspects of the biz, and especially to early adoptees - get them building procedural tanks in Houdini instead of low-poly robots in Maya.

To be fair SESI has been attempting to push Houdini as more than an FX Tool for a while, and it looks like the recent price cut is a further move in that direction. I think the biggest barriers to getting into Houdini for a beginner are some limitations around the poly tool set and the shading methodology. I would love to see a Hypershade style graph with predicted rendered swatches. Most people diving into the vex context of a shading network for the first time.. go 'what the... $!'... and back out.

FEM would be greaaaat, but I wonder as Houdini has the best RBS system available they'd wanna go down that route just yet. I agree about the speed, and most users are willing to forego the extra speed for the functionality Houdini offers.

SESI just had their best year apparently, so I think they should go all guns blazing and keep going after modelling/lighting/animation as well as FX.

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someday autodesk will buy sesi, and the dark side will consume you all

...then Blender will become the last of the Mohicans.

The Blender society of free workers and peasants will become the greatest legion against world's imperialism.

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From what I understand, the closer something is to the core, the more experienced it is doing that. So mudbox/motionbuilder can do what they do, but they can't handle uber hardcore tasks.

Also I think the chart is also done a little carelessly. Like XSI crossing the rigging section a little doesn't make sense. It can do rigging but only that much?

My guess is they will focus XSI only to ICE related stuff, and nothing else. But from the chart it sounds like it will do particles for simple stuff only.

Edited by magneto
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Well, the chart is really simple.

The reason XSI (actually it´s isn´t called XSI anymore ;D) is only regarded for particles is that Autodesk gave recently another big step in the killing-Softimage process. I had a local reseller tell me "what do you expect? there are very few Softimage users? Autodesk isn´t going to update it like Maya or MAX!"...go figure.

This added to ICE technology going to Maya convinced me that Softimage is due for a soon death in less than two years from now.

And it´s a bad move for Autodesk because too many people still remembers their promise not to kill the app, so if anything it will help worsening their public image.

It´s bad news that Naiad was bough by the money-making machine, but I understand the developers perfectly knew the consequences of it.

As for less Houdini market...I´m not so sure. Supposedly Maya now has FEA (supposedly because it´s not into the package you buy from the shelf. You gotta buy it separately) yet I still see most stores solving their rigid dynamics problems in either Houdini or Thinking Particles.

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