Alias.com Has Now Been...autodesk'd

[jtk77]

well, went to Alias.com and the cool, black...silver...red...hard graphics are now...white...some sissy blue...and well....boring. I'm kinda sad today.
nothing much to add except I'm really waiting to see what happens. I havn't heard anything at all.
I posted a comment about how the Alias development cycle has always been more robust than some of the other programs. Max in particular. Maya gets a good sized update yearly, sometimes a .5 upgrade over that period of time. Just have to wonder whats up is all.

[geoffcrowther]

let the homogenization begin.

god that site sucks now.

[drblacksnake]

Well.. looks like they are going to change Maya's and MotionBuilder's logos too.
From point of marketing that's "normal", since Alias changed Kaydara's too.

[joojaa]

Well the winged horse is quite cool, tough i dont know what the hell it has to do with maya. As is the description wich clearly puts maya in their description. Still cant se how its a good thing you need to apay and than buyt plugins on top of that in tne max description.

But thing is autodesk is by far more conservative than alias ever was.

[jtk77]

Well, I just remeber what happened to Discreet, they just fouled that whole line up at a time when it should have seriously moved forward to compete. Combustion could have competed with Shake if the development hadn't been screwed up at the merger. Well, maybe, now...eh, why bother with it?
Maybe I'm wrong.
The general look of everything is like they have no idea about the user base and its history and don't care. So they are just consuming it into their system, something that, for those of us who have been around awhile has always had a certian sense of what it was as a company, what the software was, and all that is just gone.
Thats what happens on take overs, its nice to be nostalgic, the cool mystery and wonder when I was first using Poweraniamtor on a strange puprle box when all I've ever seen before were dumb grey boxes that did typing programs will never come back. Sgi dropped their ball HARD, when they should have moved into other markets like apple did, the way Avid has been forced to( Avid almost lost it as well, but they pulled it out at zero hour with thier gear the last 2 years) they just didn't and were overrun. Alias fell inspite of that.
As far as the feeling of the company goes, that phycological impression that...really does matter since we're all visual monkeys, it inspires a sense of user loyality:
Alias has always been that nonorganic, kick your ass looking company. Now with the little symbols, the sissy colors autodesk likes, its almost like they are on this organicize kick. I really hate that crap haha...oh well.
Its lame to get so crazy over a company, but it was one of the few things having known the people there, having grown into the undustry being a user of Alias products over the last..geez..8 to 10 years, I hate to see it just gone. It blows. Theres something to be said for having a connection to a brand. At this point changing software if anything new looks good is fine. Before I'd have a cerain sense of history with a product and wanting to stick it out to see how things go, now, who cares about that? Guess thats how it should be.
I'm SURE these minor things, are only precursers to huge major ones.
That organic marketing, with "tribal" like sybols and stupid bullshit like that always pissed me off, I'm more of a metal, sleek, hardedge fan. Give me a robot over some smelly native with a glowing stick (I recall a few max booths)

By the way, does anyone know if Duncan is still with them?

[drblacksnake]

well.. actually I guess they hope, that users would swallow the first bitter of how it looks from outside, see that actually there's little changed inside, and got re-addicted again.. and then they can have a radical changes for inside.. step by step pulling a blanket towards Autodesk.

[joojaa]

wow in thatcase theyd have the best manager in autodesk Autodesk is one of those ompanies that resemble microsoft thay dont realy care of the user. Its the size, and the distance between managers and doers, it pomotes teh sortof looks good on exxcellsheet governing. Wich im against.

Anyway you can have good department in comppanies like this. Most often you dont.

[jtk77]

Yeah, well we're a small industry and we really need a small company. If you recall how Alias was before they tried to become really corprate around early 2000 and how the industry used to be until someone thought it was a software giant (we really are not, we're so tiny) and started running things like you would the big mas market software it was nice.
The small companies today, the Pixel Logics, the Nevercenters, Eovias to some extent...acually Newtek still feels that way,Apple, eh...sorta mainly because of the way Steve Jobs has them interact....even Softimage has tried to keep that feel under the tyranny of Avid, and that horrible time with MS haha
But autodesk, never did. They were always the most corprate company in our whole industry. Talking to representives from there always felt like talking to a bank, or an investment firm...you guys do 3d? Ok, so does anyone know a thing about the real industry? Oh, you're a PR rep..neat...nice suit, whats that? Next week you're representing Whirlpool at a consumer show? OH cool!

(blah! give me a kid who wasn't seen the light of day, can't dress himself, and knows a thing or two about D & D showing me 3d products anyday)

I don't know, I just recall we were big into discreet around here, things change, Autodesk took over and support for most of what we have went to crap. We ended up shifting over that 2 year period to something else and ended all support of that product line.
I'm really hoping Alias keeps surprising us, hoping the updates keep comming out, the general feel of the invetivness and art of Alias stays, or a smaller company who steps up their product to a production level is going to make Autodesks investment vanish over night.

By the way, Alias products are part of the main production line for the Development kit on the Ps3.
Another good reason to buy Alias eh? Amazing how in a short time Alias made its way into the game industry.
EA, SOny, etc. when hardcore max guys I know said it would never change from MAX and Alias was wasting money trying to get in. So all things change, 5 years in this business is 100 in another.

I'm betting Autodesk is going to go towards the Maya development and let Max be absobed into something greater, its what makes sense to me.

Just not a fan of pastels and tribal marks..eck.. haha..
can't wait till my upgrade comes in a nondscript pale box with AUTODESK huge and maya....tiny in Ariel font and nothing else. As if minimalism is still popular outside of industrial design these days.
If you can't do it as well as APPLE...don't.

anyway AUTODESK...wheres my Maya modifier "stack" ...gawd I hate how max does things

[joojaa]

QUOTE(jtk77 @ 03/19/06, 09:57 PM) [snapback]231602[/snapback]
anyway AUTODESK...wheres my Maya modifier "stack" ...gawd I hate how max does things

Maya has a stack, its just that people dont usualy call something thats capable of being so much more a stack

[jtk77]

haha exactly...wheres my AUTODESK modifier stack... the one that an't capable haha

[jase]

QUOTE(mr.bean @ 03/18/06, 11:41 PM) [snapback]231539[/snapback]
let the homogenization begin.

god that site sucks now.

I get a sick stomach whenever I read" Autodesk Maya"
Maya isn't even one of the featured products.

Me Sad, Sad, Sad.

[kurianos3d]

QUOTE(jase @ 04/07/06, 01:29 AM) [snapback]233561[/snapback]
I get a sick stomach whenever I read" Autodesk Maya"
Maya isn't even one of the featured products.

Me Sad, Sad, Sad.

Hi

AutoDesk is started to Changing .. now site changed now realyi am feeling Maya is going to die

i think after some time we cant see Maya..then its too bad...realy too bad...

i dont know how much year we can saw maya with this super logo and concept

oh my god (

[jtk77]

The smart move would be to take the good parts of both programs and form a new one ending maya and max.
Sad but true, as long as I don't have to deal with the max interface and how it does things, I'm fine with it.
Autodesk is just soooo scary sometimes. I really look at the waste land of Discreet and shudder...no matter what people say, Discreet went bad directions when it got taken over, as far as I could tell, and as we delt with our discreet products that we ended up chucking over the side a year after the changes.

[kurianos3d]

Hi

Yet its happend now they changed Maya Logo

its too sad..and its too booring

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/API\_Program.pdf

look to this pdf

u can saw the new logo

o.S.k

[jtk77]

yeah but thankfully they seem to be back to red..I saw that same logo and font in some sissy off blue a month back...reds fine by me.
Eh, whatever, we shall see.

[jase]

Every time I turn around , I see Maya disappearing a little more, spooky really.
I just hope Autodesk doesn't mess with the interface and code too much.
I tried to make a model in Max this week and had to redo the whole thing in Maya, Max just wouldn't work and it hasn't since Max3.
I am curious to see Maya 7.5 or 8 and see what happens.
Thank heavens Maya 7 was a rich full featured Alias product.
It may be the one I use for a long time.

[kurianos3d]

Hi

Yoo realy i am also feeling this same thing coz now everywhere autodesk is puting a new face for Maya

i want to know is we will still get the Maya API and MEL ??? thats the prob

realy i dont know...

[jase]

QUOTE(kurianos3d @ 04/13/06, 12:09 PM) [snapback]234205[/snapback]
Hi

Yoo realy i am also feeling this same thing coz now everywhere autodesk is puting a new face for Maya

i want to know is we will still get the Maya API and MEL ??? thats the prob

realy i dont know...

I was wondering about the MEL scripting aspect of Autodesk Maya, but it will probably be the same or very similar to Alias Maya, after all WETA & ILM both use Maya and I don't think Autodesk would be stupid enough to change MEL,...I hope.
These are uncertain times for Maya.