Category Archives: Year in Review

Softimage mailing 2016 year in review

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Hi there and welcome to 2017 !
Here’s a few stats and the obligatory word cloud for the past year on the Softimage mailing list.
softimage_mailing_list_2016
  • 3282 posts
  • 406 topics
  • 233 different posters

Top 25 posters

*number of posts in parentheses
  1. Morten Bartholdy (219)
  2. Olivier Jeannel (179)
  3. Pierre Schiller (151)
  4. Mirko Jankovic (119)
  5. Chris Marshall (106)
  6. Sebastien Sterling (85)
  7. Sven Constable (84)
  8. Stephen Blair (74)
  9. Matt Lind (71)
  10. Steven Caron (67)
  11. Jason S (60)
  12. Jordi Bares (60)
  13. Leendert A. Hartog (54)
  14. Rob Wuijster (52)
  15. pedro santos (52)
  16. Cristobal Infante (51)
  17. Angus Davidson (48)
  18. Ognjen Vukovic (48)
  19. Fabricio Chamon (41)
  20. Martin Yara (40)
  21. adrian wyer (37)
  22. Adam Seeley (36)
  23. Andrew Prostrelov (34)
  24. Stephen Davidson (34)
  25. Matt Morris (33)

Top 25 topics

*number of posts in parentheses

  1. Autodesk acquires Solid Angle (139)
  2. Goodbyes (was this is the end…) (97)
  3. this is the end…… (83)
  4. Redshift users? (70)
  5. Wiki EOL soon (70)
  6. So.. Maya rigging is still a thing… (66)
  7. PyQtForSoftimage Examples “”Out of present range”” error (60)
  8. Ping (39)
  9. Softimage EOL 2017 – The chronicles of a giant (documentary) (35)
  10. New render layers in maya (35)
  11. Softimage and CMYK (32)
  12. Reminiscing (31)
  13. “OTOY announces availability of OctaneRender 3 and OctaneRender Cloud, previews Brigade/OctaneRender” (30)
  14. Soft 2 Houdini (30)
  15. City generator? (30)
  16. Momentum / implosiafx plugins (29)
  17. 1 texture per polygon (28)
  18. object parenting in maya (28)
  19. Robinsons drink effect (25)
  20. -Camera. Frames issues (24)
  21. Wrapped (22)
  22. OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant) (21)
  23. Motion Tracking (21)
  24. OT Maya: (Please god tell me i’m not alone with this) (20)
  25. Warcraft Creating The Horde (20)
    Friday Flashback #265 (20)

Top topics by month

Jan
  • Redshift users? (70)
  • So.. Maya rigging is still a thing… (66)
  • this is the end…… (62)
  • OT Maya: (Please god tell me i’m not alone with this) (20)
  • Happy New Year list (16)
  • photoscan on peaople (16)

Feb

  • Goodbyes (was this is the end…) (72)
  • Softimage and CMYK (32)
  • 1 texture per polygon (27)
  • this is the end…… (21)
  • City generator? (21)

Mar

  • OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant) (21)
  • -Camera. Frames issues (17)
  • Beta of new Binary Alchemy shaders available for free (16)
  • “XSI and Window 10, the bright future” (15)
  • ICE – how to align instances to edges? (13)

Apr

  • Autodesk acquires Solid Angle (139)
  • New render layers in maya (35)
  • “OTOY announces availability of OctaneRender 3 and OctaneRender Cloud, previews Brigade/OctaneRender” (30)
  • Wrapped (22)
  • Distribute between knots? Know the percentage position of a knot? (19)

May

  • Momentum / implosiafx plugins (29)
  • Change object visibility with another object? (19)
  • Compositing app choice (18)
  • equirectangular uv (17)
  • Alembic advices (16)

Jun

  • PyQtForSoftimage Examples “”Out of present range”” error (43)
  • Path constrained camera and endless loop (16)
  • external” Python crashes Softimage onstartup (15)
  • exit from a CustomTool (15)
  • ICE and Mental Ray – seen anything like this? (13)
  • Convert PIC files (13)

Jul

  • Motion Tracking (21)
  • PyQtForSoftimage Examples “”Out of present range”” error (14)
  • Soft to Maya Bridge (14)
  • OT: Softs Duplicate Symmetry in Maya? (11)
  • “Camera warpers / deformers / lattice, anyone?” (9)

Aug

  • Wiki EOL soon (56)
  • Reminiscing (31)
  • aaOcean – SI 2014 – How to set it up on a scene? (15)
  • OT: GearVR + Mocap Suit = Full Body in VR (15)
  • redshift materials show gray in viewport (15)

Sep

  • object parenting in maya (28)
  • ÜberTage says goodbye: ÜberTage|2016 this Friday, September 16th in Siegen/Germany (17)
  • testing list (14)
  • OT Model shelf in Houdini missing (14)
  • Wiki EOL soon (11)

Oct

  • Ping (39)
  • Soft 2 Houdini (30)
  • Soft 2 Houdini acronyms (11)
  • Cage deformer question (10)
  • Houdini 2 Soft Q – how to write/read Houdini attributes in XSI? (9)

Nov

  • Robinsons drink effect (24)
  • Warcraft Creating The Horde (20)
  • electric plasma effect (18)
  • Exploding fractured mesh (17)
  • Weights Plugin (12)

Dec

  • Softimage EOL 2017 – The chronicles of a giant (documentary) (35)
  • Houdini voronoi to Soft – disconnected faces? (15)
  • thickness – avoiding self intersections (14)
  • render 360 (9)
  • OT: Wireless VR 2.0 (8)
  • Wacom Cintiq 13 (8)
  • Last xsi reel (8)

2015 year in review for the Softimage mailing list

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2015_softimage_list_word_cloud

539 topics, 4055 posts, 271 different posters

Top 25 Threads
*number of posts in bold

  1. Maya thinks they’re clever….and that’s the problem 92
  2. Introducing Canvas – visual programming for Fabric Engine 2.0 59
  3. Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya! 58
  4. H14 is out ! 56
  5. Is purchasing a new softimage license impossible? 53
  6. Continued use of Softimage question 50
  7. OT: Hypershade changes in Maya 2016 46
  8. Friday Flashback #223 46
  9. test 41
  10. can I still get softimage? 40
  11. Heavy scenes with the GTX 970 40
  12. GATOR – A feature in Softimage since 2008 38
  13. Soft licenses still available for purchase? 36
  14. Very OT: for the love of your career.. try houdini 36
  15. akeytsu animation software demo 36
  16. “”The shadow over The Foundry”” 36
  17. Maya freelance list 35
  18. OT: Epic going completely crazy 33
  19. Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite 33
  20. OT: Modo 901 Sneak Peek 32
  21. [PLUG] mGear Teaser 31
  22. Have a question an alternative tool 31
  23. End of the ride 31
  24. Maya graph dependencies 28
  25. OT’ish: Redshift renderfarm with Softimage setup? 27

Top 25 Posters
* number of posts in bold

  1. Jason S 132
  2. Pierre Schiller 125
  3. Morten Bartholdy 117
  4. Eric Thivierge 98
  5. Raffaele Fragapane 94
  6. Matt Lind 94
  7. Mirko Jankovic 91
  8. Sebastien Sterling 85
  9. Leendert A. Hartog 84
  10. Stephen Blair 82
  11. Olivier Jeannel 80
  12. Gerbrand Nel 79
  13. Mario Reitbauer 78
  14. Luc-Eric Rousseau 72
  15. Sven Constable 70
  16. Ponthieux, Joseph G. 68
  17. Angus Davidson 63
  18. Tim Leydecker 61
  19. Eric Turman 60
  20. Chris Marshall 54
  21. Nicolas Esposito 53
  22. peter_b 52
  23. Jordi Bares Dominguez 49
  24. Steven Caron 48
  25. Francisco Criado 48

2014 year in review for the Softimage mailing list

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xsi_list_word_cloud_2014_01

1164 topics, 14274 posts, 460 different posters

42% of all activity on the list happened during a five-week period after the Softimage EOL announcement.
xsi_list_by_week_2014

Top 25 topics
* number of posts in bold

  1. SI and Houdini 250
  2. A germ of an idea. 220
  3. SoftImage Artists take on Maya @ Escape Studios 196
  4. new upgrade policy 177
  5. Autodesk webinar 163
  6. Maya feature request from Softimage users 155
  7. Survey – how would you do this? 154
  8. An Open Letter to Carl Bass 133
  9. Softimage 2015 Last Release Announcement 126
  10. rigging in xsi vs maya 126
  11. Cinema 4D an option? 121
  12. humanize maya, SOFT top 5 117
  13. Open letter to Autodesk 113
  14. rumor, Soft dead within the next year 111
  15. YOUR TOP 5 109
  16. softimage to modo 103
  17. Redshift3D Render 100
  18. A confession 97
  19. Softimage transition webinar is starting in 10 minutes 96
  20. A more graceful retirement – my counter offer 90
  21. What use is ICE really? 89
  22. Maya strengts (anyone?) 82
  23. 28/03/2014 81
  24. Anyone in the SI list transitioning to MODO? -Please add your mail here 79
  25. Listening 78

Top 25 posters
* number of posts in bold

  1. Sebastien Sterling 611
  2. Jason S 429
  3. Emilio Hernandez 398
  4. Jordi Bares 330
  5. Angus Davidson 329
  6. Matt Lind 317
  7. Mirko Jankovic 303
  8. Leendert A. Hartog 276
  9. Raffaele Fragapane 273
  10. Eric Thivierge 260
  11. olivier jeannel 252
  12. Cristobal Infante 250
  13. Luc-Eric Rousseau 212
  14. Tim Crowson 203
  15. Francisco Criado 183
  16. Stephen Blair 180
  17. Nicolas Esposito 179
  18. Steven Caron 165
  19. Ognjen Vukovic 162
  20. Morten Bartholdy 158
  21. Eric Turman 142
  22. Perry Harovas 140
  23. Rob Chapman 137
  24. Paul Griswold 137
  25. Ed Manning 125
    adrian wyer 125

Softimage mailing list – Year in Review

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2013_xsilist_wordcloud

12060 posts
1388 discussions
460 different posters

Top Ten discussion threads
Number of posts in bold.

  1. Softimage 2014 190
  2. Octane render 177
  3. Announcing Redshift – Biased GPU Renderer 154
  4. Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! 118
  5. softimage.tv – Hello World! 78
  6. Future of Naiad 72
  7. Unofficial Softimage user voice 69
  8. Softimage 2015 User Survey 67
  9. Difference between a force and a velocity ? 63
  10. SI 2014 sneak peek 62

Top Ten posters
Number of posts in bold.

The top 10 posters accounted for 23% of all posts; the top 25 for 40%.

  1. Alan Fregtman 396
  2. Matt Lind 382
  3. Raffaele Fragapane 380
  4. Eric Thivierge 341
  5. olivier jeannel 308
  6. Steven Caron 297
  7. Stephen Blair 277
  8. Sebastien Sterling 223
  9. Luc-Eric Rousseau 189
  10. Ponthieux, Joseph G. 185

Century club

  1. Alan Fregtman 396
  2. Matt Lind 382
  3. Raffaele Fragapane 380
  4. Eric Thivierge 341
  5. olivier jeannel 308
  6. Steven Caron 297
  7. Stephen Blair 277
  8. Sebastien Sterling 223
  9. Luc-Eric Rousseau 189
  10. Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] 185
  11. Chris Chia 161
  12. Paul Griswold 158
  13. Mirko Jankovic 157
  14. Sergio Mucino 156
  15. Szabolcs Matefy 153
  16. Christopher 152
  17. Stefan Kubicek 147
  18. Rob Chapman 136
  19. adrian wyer 133
  20. Alok Gandhi 126
  21. Sandy Sutherland 125
  22. Leonard Koch 124
  23. Grahame Fuller 123
  24. Dan Yargici 122
  25. Emilio Hernandez 120
  26. Eugen Sares 116
  27. Andy Moorer 115
  28. Morten Bartholdy 107
  29. Angus Davidson 105
  30. Peter B 103

Top 5 most active days

  • 26 March, 149 posts, “Softimage 2014”
  • 28 February, 121, “SI 2014 sneak peek”
  • 20 December, 103, “positivity” and “rumor, Soft dead within the next year”
  • 13 February, 102, “Difference between a force and a velocity ?”
  • 17 July, 101, “I can’t believe there is no tutorial for Softimage on Autodesk webiste”

    • si-community 2012 year in review

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    One last look back at 2012. This time for si-community.

    Here’s a forum bubble chart that gives an at-a-glance overview (of the top 5 forums based on number of views). The size of the bubble indicates the number of views; the X-axis is the number of topics created in 2012, and the Y-axis is the number of replies.
    si-community-bubble-chart

    Most viewed topics overall

    1. mesh paint (21919)
    2. SI 2013 sightings (17507)
    3. PhysX Fluid Simulation in Softimage ICE (15696)
    4. SPOILER ALERT – general Softimage 2013 description (11960)
    5. Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad (10198)
    6. bring back softimage.net (9574)
    7. Vray for Softimage official release (9544)
    8. quickPrimitive (9427)
    9. SI Technology Previews (8452)
    10. any news about Softimage 2014 ??? (7950)
    11. exit Stephen Blair? (7872)

    Most viewed News topics

    1. SI 2013 sightings (17507)
    2. SPOILER ALERT – general Softimage 2013 description (11960)
    3. Vray for Softimage official release (9544)
    4. SI Technology Previews (8452)
    5. exit Stephen Blair? (7872)
    6. No 2013 Advantage Pack (7774)
    7. Modo 601 Preview (5837)
    8. Luxology & the Foundry merge (3442)
    9. “Thiago’s Teamup and Mr. Jones” (2781)
    10. Maya nHair – how hard to repro? (2575)

    Most viewed Announcements

    1. Motion Tools 1.0 (7682)
    2. SOFTIMAGE|UeberTage 2012 Frida September 28th 2012 (7049)
    3. new release: emPolygonizer4 version 4.0 (4780)
    4. ZBrush FiberMesh to strands compound (4687)
    5. ImplosiaFX 1.0 is available! (3200)
    6. Exocortex Species 1.0 now available!! (3156)
    7. xsibase “may harm your computer” [???] (2643)
    8. Fabric Engine v1.0 released (2493)
    9. Animation tools (2477)
    10. Essential Geo for Softimage (2136)

    Most viewed Open Discussion topics

    1. Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad (10198)
    2. bring back softimage.net (9574)
    3. any news about Softimage 2014 ??? (7950)
    4. WTF??? Autodesk snubs Softimage in GDC schedule! (6314)
    5. the future? (was: the “frustration” thread) (5267)
    6. Windows 8 (3904)
    7. XSI Base down? (3629)
    8. Great work done with Softimage (3301)
    9. 2014 WISH LIST (3161)
    10. How rendering should be (3123)

    Most active discussions (topics with the most replies)

    1. SI 2013 sightings (313)
    2. SPOILER ALERT – general Softimage 2013 description (281)
    3. WTF??? Autodesk snubs Softimage in GDC schedule! (145)
    4. SI Technology Previews (145)
    5. Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad (138)
    6. No 2013 Advantage Pack (133)
    7. bring back softimage.net (117)
    8. quickPrimitive (111)
    9. PhysX Fluid Simulation in Softimage ICE (111)
    10. Vray for Softimage official release (102)

    Forums with the most topics

    1. ICE (211)
    2. OpenDiscussion (108)
    3. General Troubleshooting (89)
    4. Rendering (87)
    5. News (82)
    6. Programming (65)
    7. Announcements (65)
    8. Animation (61)
    9. Modeling (42)
    10. Materials & Shaders (37)

    Forums with the most views

    1. News (147989)
    2. OpenDiscussion (121071)
    3. ICE (107861)
    4. Announcements (83549)
    5. Plugins (52735)
    6. Rendering (48569)
    7. ICE compounds (44523)
    8. General Troubleshooting (33671)
    9. Animation (27112)
    10. Programming (24807)

    This data was obtained by visiting all the forum pages (such as all 9 pages of the News forum) and extracting the number of posts, posting date, number of replies, and topic title from the html.

    Softimage mailing list 2012 retrospective

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    2012PostsPerDay

    Misc numbers and facts…

    • 11830 total posts
    • 1434 active threads
    • 1739 new threads created by 287 different users
    • 453 different posters (for an average of 26 posts per person)
    • According to Google groups, there are 1053 group members
    • Busiest day was 17 April, with 152 posts (73 of those posts in the “Softimage development” discussion)
    • Longest thread: “In case you missed it..” 236
      • Number of different posters in that thread: 76
    • Number of posts in the Friday Flashback thread: 271
    • Most posts in a thread in a single day: 84 (in the “Intro to the new team (was Softimage development)” thread, on 19 April)
    • Most active poster contributed 3.6% of all posts
    • 25% of all posts come from the 10 most active users
    • Most posts by one user in a single thread: 19
    • Most new threads started by one user: 70

    Top 12 threads

    1. Friday Flashback 271
    2. In case you missed it.. 236
    3. Intro to the new team (was Softimage development) 152
    4. Small Annoying Things 135
    5. Softimage development 111
    6. Rumors 111
    7. test 79
    8. Softimage 2013 74
    9. raafal 61
    10. Qt Wrapper command log issue 58
    11. 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? 58
    12. V-Ray for Softimage released 57

    Top 10 users by number of posts

    1. Alan Fregtman 428
    2. Steven Caron 393
    3. Eric Thivierge 380
    4. Stephen Blair 300
    5. Matt Lind 297
    6. Rob Chapman 259
    7. Szabolcs Matefy 246
    8. Alok Gandhi 241
    9. Sandy Sutherland 234
    10. Bradley Gabe 200

    Top 10 users by number of new threads started

    1. Szabolcs Matefy 70
    2. Alan Fregtman 35
    3. Eric Thivierge 30
    4. Bradley Gabe 29
    5. Sandy Sutherland 26
    6. Stefan Andersson 26
    7. olivier jeannel 24
    8. adrian wyer 23
    9. Kris Rivel 22
    10. Morten Bartholdy 21

    Top 10 days and main topic of discussion (if any)

    1. 17/4/2012 152
      • Softimage development 73
    2. 10/9/2012 123
      • “A sad day, in this part of the country, for digit” 24
      • In case you missed it.. 55
    3. 19/4/2012 118
      • Intro to the new team (was Softimage development) 84
    4. 13/9/2012 109
      • In case you missed it.. 81
    5. 20/3/2012 105
    6. 20/4/2012 99
      • Intro to the new team (was Softimage development) 58
    7. 12/9/2012 98
      • In case you missed it.. 80
    8. 22/2/2012 96
    9. 10/2/2012 90
    10. 31/8/2012 87
      • Friday Flashback 75

    Century club (100 posts or more)

    1. Alan Fregtman 428
    2. Steven Caron 393
    3. Eric Thivierge 380
    4. Stephen Blair 300
    5. Matt Lind 297
    6. Rob Chapman 259
    7. Szabolcs Matefy 246
    8. Alok Gandhi 241
    9. Sandy Sutherland 234
    10. Bradley Gabe 200
    11. Raffaele Fragapane 175
    12. Chris Marshall 164
    13. Chris Chia 164
    14. olivier jeannel 163
    15. Stefan Andersson 145
    16. Stefan Kubicek 144
    17. Luc-Eric Rousseau 143
    18. Adam Sale 142
    19. peter_b@skynet.be 137
    20. Simon Anderson 133
    21. Grahame Fuller 129
    22. Ciaran Moloney 129
    23. Xavier Lapointe 123
    24. Tim Crowson 120
    25. Eric Turman 119
    26. Ben Houston 115
    27. Guillaume Laforge 111
    28. Dan Yargici 109
    29. Paul Griswold 109
    30. Eugen Sares 108
    31. jo benayoun 106

    Wednesday word clouds – 2012 activity on the Softimage mailing list

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    Two word clouds to help visualize the activity on the Softimage mailing list during 2012: who was posting, and what were they posting about?

    What were the popular topics?
    Note that I removed “Softimage”, which was by far the most common word in the post titles (aka Subject), but which doesn’t really indicate the topic of discussion.
    wc_subject_50_no_Softimage

    Who was active on the list?
    There were approximately 450 different people who posted during 2012. This word cloud shows the 100 top names, so assuming most people have no middle names, this is more-or-less the 50 most active posters on the list.
    wc_from_100

    2012 Softimage Year in Review

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    Here’s some of the Softimage-related news and events that caused a buzz during the last year.

    top2l October After months of malware warnings and the like, xsibase finally goes down…forever. RIP xsibase.
    August Autodesk Lays Off 7% Of Entire Staff and a number of current and former Softimage people were gone. sevenpercent
    2013sp1 June Softimage 2013 Service Pack 1 released
    May
    Autodesk announces 5% price increase, and changes to upgrade pricing that will take effect 1 Feb 2013     		Upgrade
    image01 May Autodesk reshuffles Softimage development team. The original Montreal staff moves onto Maya VFX, and Softimage development is now headed up by a team in Singapore.
    May Launch event for the Softimage Creatives user group, London chapter. SoftimageCreatives_TypeLogoSmall
    autodesksubscription1 27 March Subscription prices change again. For Softimage Gold support, the price change was actually a modest decrease in price, from 900 to 890. BUT this is when many people found out that Softimage subscription prices went up significantly last year (in Europe only).
    March Softimage 2013 released…and the crowd goes wild. AutodeskSoftimage2013_boxshot_204x300
    V-Ray-Softimage-banner Feb V-Ray for Softimage released.

    This isn’t an exhaustive list, obviously, as there plenty of other things that happened during 2012, such as Exocortex Species, SOFTIMAGE|UeberTage 2012, NYC ICE workshops, MotionTools, ProceduralTopoPack, baEssential shaders, emPolygonizer4 version 4.0, Fabric Engine, Fabric Creation Platform, emFlock2, emTools, Exocortex Alembic, Autodesk Softimage Masters nominations for Benjamin Bracamonte, Jeremie Passerin, and Todd Akita, and a Junior Masters nomination for Normand Archambault.