Softimage 2011 Review: Improving Dynamics and Flexibility

The XSIbase.com founder test drives the latest version of Softimage 2011.

By Raffael Dickreuter | Monday, August 9, 2010 at 10:07 am

Posted In | Magazines: VFXWorld | Site Categories: CG, Technology, Visual Effects

You can also load audio files into Face Robot and generate facial animation.

Other additions include the Craft director tools, which can help generate procedural animation for cars and cameras, among others. Further small but handy features include the ability to keyframe camera animation from within viewing through the camera. Up until now you basically had to move the active camera in a separate viewport to create keyframes for it.

In conclusion, 2011 is a solid update for Softimage with many useful improvements that are worth the upgrade. Crosswalk 5.0, which also comes with Softimage (as it does for 3ds Max and Maya), should further improve the exchange of data between the three 3D software. For anyone worried that the Softimage development may come to a halt because of the acquisition from Autodesk, you have been proven wrong so far.

Raffael Dickreuter is a visual effects artist and previsualization designer living in Los Angeles. He is the founder of XSIbase.com and his movie work includes Terminator Salvation, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and the upcoming Green Lantern.

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Comments

I missed something when I wrote the text above. Some will say that 7.5 was for making transition into Autodesk, 2010 for optimization and stabilization (which is huge!) and 2011 for beginning again to add new killer features again...

I am not tying to say that Autodesk has put a stop to SOFTIMAGE development. Since the upgrade in 2010 was not something that can be easily counted like the number of new features, however, I only want to say that I will have to watch a little more before I can say anything.

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hmm... (not verified) | Tue, 08/17/2010 - 19:37 | Permalink

Well, I believe that the development didn't come to a halt, yet there definitely has been a slowdown.

SOFTIMAGE was outputting several features like GATOR or MOTOR in its every update until it was purchased by Autodesk. Now it seems to me that SOFTIMAGE is only outputting 1 such feature per 1 or 2 upgrade(s). Obvisouly i am not talking about minor enhancements.

It took XSI 7.5, SOFTIMAGE 2010 and 2011 to feature ICE Kinematics, basic version as far as I am concerned, from ICE that was introduced in XSI 7.0. If it stayed independent of Autodesk, it would have probably been released in 8.0 (2010) or so.

I know SOFTIMAGE is the best 3D animation package out there (especially after I have been received again a lecture in building things in Maya...), and new features have arrived. However, I also see a slowdown in the development, and I am not sure what will happen in the future because most of the features that arrived are those everyone had expected (such as ICE Kinematics or lip sync in Face Robot). If SOFTIMAGE were not given such features, Autodesk would have been criticized heavily...

This is not to criticize or put down Autodesk; I am merely saying that I will have to wait a little more before I can say that the development for the software is not slowed down at all. I know that performance boost in 2010 and such invisible efforts take a lot of effort and time, and I regard the inclusion of Craft Studio to be another sign that Autodesk is not discarding SOFTIMAGE.

I hope all the best for the hard-working SOFTIMAGE development teams, yet I also have freedom to say that I would like to watch Autodesk a little more.

P. S. There are MAX users that claim that Autodesk is to kill Maya and XSI and combine the techonologies into a new version of MAX, called Excalibur. I don't see why they would want to keep alive the least capable package (in terms of software architecture) and kill the better ones when they have them all, but anyways, Autodesk should put some control over this kind of rumors. Makes it more difficult to trust them...