The Only Question:Where's Sumatra?

[thomastorfs]

The only question that has any relevence to the coming of the year 2000 is
"where's Sumatra" to be followed with "will AVID/Sumatra continue to support
IRIX, go to Linux, or that other UNIX-based OS with a substantial global user-base anxiously awaiting the release anouncemnet of MacOSXMAYA. I use the word
"substantial" advisedly because AVID itself found out what 50,000 Media Composer
users,worldwide, means to AVID's marketshare. As a result AVID is agressively reaasuring that MacUser-base of its support for G4 & MacOSX technology.
Thus the unanswered question remains:"When is Montreal gonna stop with this
Soft-massage and deliver Sumatra and when is AVID gonna wake Soft up to MacOSX?"

[bdeaver]

Sumatra Beta1 is out to a very limited group of testers. Beta2 will be shipped during the next weeks. Sumatra itself will be available in Version1 at the end of the year. There will be a NT- and a IRIX-version as far as I know. No further comments from AVID to Linux- or MacOS-ports. And to the MacOSX-thing: First of all I want to see the very first smooth working Macintosh-System before I cry out "halleluja - the world will be great!". Every system from Apple I have seen in the past 3 years convinced me that you indeed could do worse than MS. And that doesn't mean MS is cool...

[thomastorfs]

One can very well say " I want to see the final commercially available
Sumatra before giving the high Hosannas for Softimage". It's a much anitcipated
evolution-leap, but this year old Soft-massage over it's 2nd coming is getting
old and then it's going to be version 1.0. Softimage/DS had many complaints in version 2.0. Soft has the AVID patron to fall back on while Apple has only itself
and it knows it has to make it work. Software is atleast controlable,unlike hardware w/ 3rd party & off-shore production dependencies. Like Apple, Soft had
better produce the goods on time or lose out. We've all read the promised specs on Sumatra long enough. They should have been ready for Siggraph '99.
Glad to hear they still support IRIX,although the SGI-workstation is fast becoming obsolete due to over-pricing & slowness compared to NT-boxes and the new G4's.
By supporting IRIX it means they still have a UNIX-coding team which lends itself to the possibility of porting to MacOSX.
If Alias/Wavefront can port MAYA to MacOSX,then Softimage has no further excuse at this stage. Especially with its
corporate parent,AVID, backing MacOSX & G4 technology all the way for its Mac-based Media Composer client-base ( 50,000 strong worldwide). Time will tell.

[tony-4]

You know I was cleaning my studio yesterday and I ran into a flyer sent to me from Softimage back in early '97. It lists their new products like Toonz 4.1, Eddie 3.5, and the just released Softimage 3.7 and you know it says that "... it paves the way for Sumatra." Needless to say, I was laughing out loud

Tony

[xavyiy]

There are, IMO, a couple of other questions. One, what will the price be like? How much will it cost to upgrade from previous versions of Soft to Sumatra? Also, are they going to keep requiring a $3000/year maintenance contract? Seriously, Adobe, NewTek, Maxon, Kinetix, et al are able to make a profit while selling upgrades at under $1000 (Kinetix is on the high end of the price spectrum at $800), yet SoftImage and A|W insist on charging $3000/year for support!

Oh well, while they're puttering around, everyone else is either catching up or leaving them behind, so in the end, it's their problem, not ours. Still, it would be a shame to see them go the way of Raycer and Real3D.

-Rakesh

Rakesh Malik

[tony-4]

I have seen Sumatra and it looks great, but I share your concerns regarding price/support. I'm hoping that since Si has been kicked around lately by Maya, the pricing would be more down to earth. Let's all hope...

[xavyiy]

The base price has already come down to a more reasonable price, but AFAIK they are still requiring support contracts. I hope they do away with that, because it raises the price quite a bit. It's silly to require that customers pay enough to buy a copy of LightWave 6 + some cool plugins just to get customer support, when NewTek offers e-mail customer support free of charge for anyone who owns a copy of LightWave.

On the other hand, maybe they'll actually wise up when people start jumping ship to Maya, LightWave, and 3DSMax in droves.

-Rakesh

Rakesh Malik

[ianidas]

Haven't they already jumped on that other boat? Just check out the Job Listings, and you'll find almost exclusively Maya jobs...
The only thing I heard about the Sumatra Beta is that it crashes like there's no tomorrow.
I hope they make sumatra good... It'd better be if they plan on surviving...

Leider hab ich nichts zu sagen...

[a-ron]

Well I have heard that we will be waiting until March 2000 for Sumatra 1.0. And that it WILL not include ALL the features we had hoped (such as a full compliment of NURBS tools). I have heard that KEY features are being shelved for release 1.5 already. Also .. there will no longer be a Dope Sheet.

I have seen it in depth .. and what I saw looked awesome. I hope they work the bugs out though for it crashed a few times (in a 2 hour demo).

The render tree looks awesome as do the mixing tools. I did not get to see the new modelling tools as they were not yet implemented in the beta 1.0 version I was looking at.

Anyway I do agree with an earlier users post ... Maya has taken over. I love Soft, but I have reluctantly begun my Maya training because of the amazing market share Maya has gained in the last 2 years.

I too hope that this new product paves the way to a brighter future for us Softies .. but my hope is dwindling fast.

Well .. only time will tell.

But Sumatra will not be under your Christmas tree this year :-(.

-Michael

[pitou]

wow, some undocumented rumours out here!!
If you guys really want to know about Softimage, subscribe to the mailing list.

Sumatra is supposedly for March 2000 (NT,Irix)
Linux support will (probably) follow soon after that.
Mac is less likely, because soft is quite picky for graphic cards.

Maintenance (and I know, I just paid mine) is about 1000$ for a base license. The price for a base license is about 20% higher than 3Dmax+CS. Animation and overall efficiency are still the best out there. I would not call that "excessively expensive". And you're free not to pay maintenance, and put the money aside to get a Lightwave license. I find this a very good idea actually.

As for Sumatra being incomplete: not all beta versions have all the same features implemented. For a complete overview: there has been a leaflet with a comprehensive feature list.

...
nuff said

[kiwi]

Sumatra b.2.0 is very solid.(for a BETA)

There is a beta test site here in Dallas that is actually using it for production on a couple of spots -

Let's keep our fingers crossed for March.

[fredc]

Although, I am certainly looking forward to Sumatra, I have to admit I still like Soft 3D and see no reason to switch products even if Sumatra wasn

[joris]

I agree. Much of the success of Softimage is due to its long standing market presence. This is one reason why I chose it over 3DS MAX and Maya. Sumatra will be an exciting step, however I believe Avid will need to build a better support infrastructure than the current one for Softimage. I think this will make or break Sumatra.

[philbert]

okay, heres one,

softimage has been a contender in high end graphics, and animation for more than 6 years!!!!

even now, its still a industry standard, and still holding strong. even when sumatra has all its kinks worked out, people will still be able to achieve what they want with good old softimage. AND also produce work that can "wow" the audiences and the experenced.

Softi still lives on...

just my 2 cents....

tWisTeD<<<