SOFTIMAGE|3D screenshot from 1997. Shows the ToonAssistant. Note the logged-in user (micharia).
I find it interesting that the User name is shown on the status line. I suppose that is part of Softimage’s Linux Unix heritage?
‘Theocracy of Hackers’ Rules Autodesk Inc., A Strangely Run Firm
Can the Latest CEO Survive A Cabal of Programmers Who Send ‘Flame Mail’?
May 28, 1992
Just as Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software supplier, is an extension of the personality of William Gates III, Autodesk is largely a creature of Mr. Walker. Like Mr. Gates, Mr. Walker is superb at identifying computer trends and spreading his vision to the troops. But unlike Mr. Gates, Mr. Walker, 42, never really wanted to run his company. “I’m an engineer, I’m a programmer, I’m a technologist,” he says. “I have no interest in running a large U.S. public company, and I never have. It was a means to an end to accomplish the technological work I wished to achieve.”He relinquished the top spot in 1986 to Alvar Green, formerly Autodesk’s chief financial officer, to return to programming. But the real power still rested with Mr. Walker, Autodesk’s biggest shareholder, and an elite group of programmers called “Core,” who had either helped Mr. Walker found the company in 1982 or led its most important projects.
Core members are contentious, eccentric free-thinkers who have had a way of devouring professional managers. They have often attacked each other and company executives, usually by sending “flame mail” — biting electronic letters. The outbursts sometimes have led to changes, and sometimes brought work to a halt. “The whole company is a theocracy of hackers,” says Charles M. Foundyller, president of Daratech Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass.
— from a 1992 article in the Wall Street Journal
IBC 1999 fx stage graphics
What Dreams May Come
Bunny
Softimage in the Movies
Star Wars: Episode One (The Phantom Menace)
Softimage in Games
Shenmue
“Sumatra”
SoftimageDS
Digital Artist: “Sumatra”, Softimage 3D, Softimage DS, Softimage Eddie, Softimage Elastic Reality, Softimage Media Illusion, Softimage Marquee, Softimage Matador, Softimage Toonz
Softimage digital artist, Avid Unity, Avid Editor, Digidesign musician
From the 1999 SOFTIMAGE|3D demo CD:
For Boxing Day, the SOFTIMAGE|3D box set:
hat tip: unfortunately I don’t remember exactly where I got this
The Hive Creates Festive Fun For Legoland
14/12/2000
The commercial was created using SoftImage
3D animation house, The Hive, was commissioned by Cartoon Network Sponsorship & Promotions department to create a magical virtual advent calendar for the Windsor-based theme park, Legoland.
The commercial was created using SoftImage and airs throughout December on the Cartoon Network.
The Hive’s brief was to create something bright and colourful that really screams Christmas to promote the fact that Legoland is opening its doors over the festive period for the first time.
The Hive worked closely with Cartoon Network Producer, Tracey Cleland, to create 24 different versions – one for each day of December leading up to Christmas day. Each commercial opens with an optical pan in which a Lego Santa welcomes the viewer to a winter landscape of snow-capped hills and trees. The viewer is then drawn to one of 24 Lego advent calendar boxes that open to reveal either a mystery prize or footage of one of Legoland’s Christmas attractions.
“To maximise efficiency we decided to produce a limited number of advent boxes which could change colour and date and be rotated to fill all the days required,” comments Adrian Wyer animator/compositor at The Hive. “The clever trick with this advert is that because every day is different the viewer is not left with the usual Christmas commercial fatigue.”
The advent calendar commercial follows on the back of a ten second teaser created at the Hive that invited people to ‘Leg it to Legoland’. This aired on the Cartoon Network in November.
Credits
Producer: Tracey Cleland @ The Cartoon Network
Animation Company: The Hive
Post Producer: James Niklasson @ The Hive
Animator/Project Leader/Compositor: Adrian Wyer @ The Hive
Reception area in the Softimage offices on St Laurent
It was six years ago to the day (12 Dec 2008) that I was last in that building.
SOFIMAGE|3D screenshots for Motherdroid, from CG WORLD December 2000
Screenshots originally posted on softimage.jp:
Other screenshots I found on a blog:
And finally, the MEKARATE video that includes the MotherDroid.
Mekarate, directed and produced by Hiroyasu Shimo, was part of the SIGGRAPH 2003 Computer Animation Festival. It focuses on an inept office worker who is haunted by a self-destructive wish and plagued with anti-social behavior.
The late Emru Townsend wrote this about MEKARATE:
On the other hand, Hiroyasu Shimo’s Mekarate eschews nature entirely; an office worker nods off at his computer late at night, and has disquieting dreams—only to awaken to find that there are worse things happening in the waking world, with much more in store for him. Contemporary Japanese anime and cinema directors have a singular talent for depicting alienation, and this film practically reeks of it, amid all the horrific biomechanical creatures that torment the lead character. Distressing audio and a visual aesthetic that faithfully mimics a handheld video recording contribute to make Mekarate so disturbing you can’t look away.
Softimage poster circa 1997: PoweredbyPassion | Virtua Fighter 3 | The Lost World: Jurassic Park | Chevy Baby | The Fifth Element | Reboot
Basically all the highlights mentioned in the Softimage 97 SIGGRAPH exhibitor blurb:
Softimage develops computer animation software for artists who animate dinosaurs for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” artists who animate singing babies for Chevy commercials, artists who create weekly half-hour animated television shows, and artists who animate Sumo wrestlers for Virtua Fighter 3. See the software that helps it happen: Softimage/3D, Softimage/Eddie Softimage/Digital Studio, Toonz.
Thanks to Rui S. for sending me this image
Nov 2002: xsibase reaches 1000 members
Today, si-community has over 2300 members (1000 or so who have ever posted) and the Softimage list has over 1300 member (450 or so who have posted this year)
eX-SI 