Avid has just sold Softimage to Autodesk.
I cant help but think that in the long term this will be good news for Blender. With all the major commercial apps now under one roof, Autodesk doesnt really have much reason to pour money into development. That means unsatisfied customers looking for an alternative and a slow moving target for Blender to catch and surpass.
I Heard this over at CGTALK:
Source:
Movie
Link
Link
If Links is Down i got a screenie:
Link
What does this mean for blender!
Omgosh!
I like Softimage! I feel like Microsoft just bought Linux!! Divided by 1,000. But it’s still stupid. Those Softimage devs are the smartest ones as I see it. They have their finger on the pulse of what people want.
Would be great if they could keep their independance from big daddy Autodesk.
Autodesk is to own XSI now!?
When I hear now that Autodesk owns 3 of the major 3D apps. now. I think this
what does it mean for blender = only time will tell, the rest is just people trying to sound smart and taking wild guesses
Now only nVidia has to buy Autodesk and they can finally splash it all together…i guess.
The Blender foundation can’t be bought, it’s not for profit. Blender can’t be purchased and made closed source unless it has approval from all the coders.
This may actually be good for Blender, when 2.50 comes around people tired of Autodesk making them pay through the nose for small updates will be looking at it.
In many ways this is good for blender in that, blender is a safe bet if you dont want to find you have been moved under the autodesk unbrella. But if Autodesk gets any bigger then we might see an enviroment develope that would hinder blender uptake!
at the moment thare are lots of 3D apps and everyone understands if you are using something they are not, at work we are allways dealing with this cross platform mess! but if Autodesk could controle the market and make interchanging files between its programs seemless and then drop support for other formats then you get a situation where it is inpossible to not have an autodesk program installed to work in the industry
we already get it where we work someone sends us a Max file and then assumes we can open it!
Ton hits self over head with shoe
I’m glad it’s free, but I wonder if there is any part of the developers that say “DOH” whenever they hear information like this.
BTW, that monopoly pics is well suited 
ZOMG I am seeing doubles. :shock:
Technology transfers !!!
Adobe bought Freehand killed it and gave Illustrator after years finally usable path tools.
But they remained having this stupid layer manager.
And not to make any competition to InDesign they finally gave Freehand only an option for
multiple art boards.
I can see similar happen with Max Maya XS while honestly they all seem to serve special markets.
Well. I’m… <dazed look> Ah… Wow… 0_o
I nearly migrated to XSI 7 (from max) last month, purely because it was still independant. (Ok, ice looks pretty damn nice too). Sure feel like I dodged a bullet on that one.
So looks like it’s staying with max for the uni class I teach (no offence, it’s just because of the way the industry here is) and mountain spring fresh 100% pure blender for my stuff from now on…
It’s all over for the big three. Now it’s Blender VS the monopoly. Go Blender GO!
Glenn
Well, I think Maya didn’t change much (in a feature interchange way) or if anything at all since they were adquired by autodesk… does anyone know if 3dsmax now has features from Maya? …So I think that in a way this are good news.
Autodesk… Microsoft…Google.
They own the world. At least Google is one that knows what to do with their money, besides asking for more.
News & Chat has 2 threads about this already.
This is not a good news I think…
Three actually. Wait now it’s two. Huh, I must be going crazy here. How many are there now?
For you it will be, XSI will now have 3DS Max GUI:p
At least the Blender Foundation is pretty much aquisition proof considering it being non-profit and the license of Blender.
