Slashdot Mirror
Encourage Hash to make a Linux Port
An anonymous reader said "An employee of Hash, Inc.,
the makers of the phenomenal Animation:Master 3D modeling
and animation software, inquired today on the animation:master mailing
list on whether or not users would buy a Linux verion of
the software package, if Hash happened to port it to
Linux. You can email Steve Sappington at Hash and let him know if you'd be interested in a Linux port. "
For those of you who care, I animated Hamster Havoc and
Duckpins in an earlier
version of this software ages ago. I miss this program more
than Diablo. Update: 02/18 09:09 by CT : Steve from Hash emailed me and said
that this was completely untrue and to stop emailing him.
I'm bummed.
funny, I emailed them asking for a linux port about 2 months ago..
got a very short answer telling me they had no such plans.
Putting this stuff on Slashdot will only hurt the company. If 5k people say they want the app on Linux and only 50 go out and buy it, it hurt the company. This should be posted on some kind of linux multimedia mailing list rather than slashdot.
Who knows, maybe they will go bankrupt porting to Linux and release their code before they file.
Perhaps if Martin Hash ports Animation Master to Linux us Slashdotters could make a movie... if for no other reason than good PR. The 'dancing baby' spread all over the net.. perhaps Tux could be made to perform various acts :)
Sure it's not open source, but at least it's interface is usable unlike Blender
I, for one, would be happy to contribute character design, modelling, animation and compositing skillz, but i don't think i could tackle such a project on my own.
an exmaple of my modelling/texturing:
http://www.faultline.gen.nz/dwarf001.jpg
Regards
-Pete
peterb@**NOSPAM**actrix.gen.nz
I thought it was terrible at first, too. But then I realized that it just has different priorities.
First, save screen real estate. This is done by eliminating sliders and text entry boxes. Buttons can do both jobs. (although, admittedly, the buttons could give a little more feedback)
Second, the UI doesn't have to be friendly to new users. Anyone using Blender can be assumed to be an expert. This isn't a web browser that Joe User needs to understand. Something as sophisticated and specialized as Blender really requires you to read the manual (or even take training) anyway.
I've only been working with the software for 4 days and I already like the UI.
What is the difference between encouraging a company to port to Linux when you know you wont buy their software and telling them to port to the n64 because a lot of n64 people will buy their software at their asking price.
Nothing. Dont tell people you want their software if it is a lie. It is probably better to only ask for software you know you will buy so companys dont get burned every time they port.
niche products like Hash *could* do tolerably well on the Linux platform. In the Linux world, "niche" == "anything without hack value", e.g. *good* word processors, Enterprise Resource Planning, etc.
I have to say, though, they are seeking feedback from the wrong people. They should be contacting their CUSTOMER BASE and asking 'em, "If we released our next version under Linux, would you buy it?" Asking the web at large invariably leads to misguided attempts to further commercial software on Linux like what SlashDot just did.
*sigh*
If there were more 3d apps on linux, I would be alot more inclined to run linux. I would love to see 3D Studio MAX, Houdini, and even Softimage...
I would also like to see proggies like AfterEffects, and Premiere.... That is the only thing holding me to Micro$haft Wincrap NT.
This is an incredible package at $200. I'd bet that there are people that would be willing to buy it IF it comes out on linux. And since a lot of people here would likely buy a windows port of it if they knew they could get the linux upgrade when it came out then:
Sell people the windows port now with the sole intention of a free upgrade when linux happens. Don't sell any manuals or anything, just pay and download. After a certain amount of time, if they haven't anounced a linux port, then they should offer a full refund since they had no distribution costs involved. I'd still bet that people would keep it and not ask for a refund at that price. So, they get more customers, no matter what and they also get money up front for development with good vibes all around.
If by R5 BeOS supports hardware OpenGL for TNT and 3dlabs cards for only 70-100 bucks (~25 for upgrade) then BeOS is the only way to go.
Hash's price is not steep.
Softimage, Alias/Wavefront - their prices are steep. But then you do get a set of encyclopedias -err- user manuals to go with them.
:-)
This has been said a few times in this discussion group, but hash is one of the most incredible packages out there. The new version, 99a, supports features that, for at least the intermediate-to-advanced character animator, rival and tend to beat those expensive SGI-based packages. Like the new smartSkins. What, you don't need complicated boning structures for muscle flexing? Damn! I already use this product constantly on my NT box. Assuming this doesn't bankrupt Hash, it provides exactly what linux needs to fill the void of confused low-end SGI-based production companies that want to jump ship-- but not to NT.
Who said anything about open source? I couldn't care less.
First off, I have to say that I use and love Animation:Master 99. Granted it's a love/hate relationship, but A:M is the best 3D program available at any price.
What I find so frustrating about A:M is Hash. Those Hash folks are stubborn, and they come across on the A:M list as being somewhat pigheaded. I use A:M on the Mac, but because Hash has this love affair with Windows, I have to put up with a lot of instability problems on my Mac. Hash has been, for the most part, indifferent to the plight of Mac A:M users. Now Hash has said that it prefers Windows because it can easily update A:M on the PC and then quickly port it to the Mac using various Microsoft Libs. (Believe me, Hash updates A:M on the hour.) Well, given their current position on LINUX, it seems that Hash has painted itself into a corner and is too stubborn to rethink its development of A:M.
Today's post from the company on the A:M list said:
"Before HASH would even "consider" (as it was glibly stated on slashdot.org) porting to LINUX there would need to be complete MFC and a WIN32 kernel available for LINUX- (now there's a marketable product! If somebody wants to do that, we'd be the first to use it!)" It seems that Hash is determined to stay a Microsoft lacky. Too bad. This position kinda leaves a non-Windows user like me out of the loop. Lets hope they don't nix Mac development, too.
Further, the A:M listmaster has threatened to ax anyone off the A:M list if they pursue the LINUX thread. It's clear that Hash doesn't want to make the time to listen to its customers, so its customers must sneak around the Net annoymously to voice banned opinions. Like this customer.
Of course, it ain't so.
My company (hence my Anonymous Coward post) was the recipient of one of Guy Kawasaki's campaigns two years ago. We're a media firm that does electronic product reviews for one of the big three TV networks, and despite the fact that we usually produced positive commentaries on Apple products, the EvangeList decided that we weren't positive enough and that we didn't do enough reviews of Apple products. (In point of fact, we usually covered every significant Apple product release; Apple just doesn't release that many products.)
Anyway, we received enough email in a very short period of time to jeopardize the stability of our system. It might not have been a big deal six months or a year later, but we had just installed our first server, and aside from being relatively inexperienced ourselves, the machine was a tad underpowered. The long and the short of it was that it was, in practical terms, a denial of service attack. Even if the tone of the mail had been more constructive (instead of the endless bitch-and-moan approach that seems to be universal in the Mac community), the volume was overwhelming.
Here's a news flash, though --- the volume of the mail did not influence us favorably. While the editorial staff remains basically friendly to Apple, the IS staff --- who were previously pretty neutral about Apple --- now take the approach that Mac advocates are the Enemy, and whenever the editorial staff wants to talk tech, we do our best to diss Apple whenever we can. We also wrote and installed software to monitor incoming email and to detect and automatically delete any future Apple-related floods of email.
The EvangeList could have avoided being a big pain in the ass by, for example, organizing petitions that interested parties could have signed their name and email address to, and then sent ONE copy to us, or they could have organized a paper mail campaign, which is more impressive anyway. If we had gotten 60,000 paper letters, it would have been visually impressive as well as harmless to our nascent server. Any fool can send email with minimal effort.
It is my hope that these ineffective Mac advocacy tactics are not used to promote Linux. It hasn't really worked for the Mac, it sure as hell didn't work for the Amiga, and it's not going to work for Linux. The only really effective way to influence companies is to SPEND MONEY; failing that, at least try to make sure your campaigns emphasize the number of potential customers rather than the size of the potential nuisance.
Well, if it were about spending money, the world would be pretty evenly split between Windows and the MacOS. Mac users spend a lot of money. Granted our software and hardware cost more, but what do you expect when developers STILL consider us a niche market. Microsoft has such a stranglehold on developers that it's impracticle for most developers--especially small ones like Hash--to develop anything without Microsoft.
I like my Mac, but I'm not evangelizing here. There needs to be a real push to develop software that is less anchored to the vagueries of this or that OS. BeOS, LINUX, and yes even Java are good starting points for this to happen. But if developers don't look beyond their own Windows develpment environment, these new approaches to the OS will never fly. We'll be stuck with mediocre Microsoft forever! Or, if not Microsoft, how 'bout mediocre Apple. (Absolute power corrupts absolutely.)
But they were seeking feedback from their customer base only. But then somebody posted this on /. /. will make them very eager to port it to Linux. ... Here, LU, I've ported it.
..... shoo .. shoo .... go bother someone else ..... I'm warning you ..... Don' make me get my bucket !
They were just polling how much AM users would like a Linux version at this point in time, and weren't considering the port YET.
And I don't think that what happened here on
Strange bunch of people y'all are. I mean asking for a company to port to Linux when you have no intention of actually buying the software.
Let's try that scenario :
LU(Linux User) : Oh, Mr. Bigfirm, please port nicesoft to Linux.
BF(Big Firm) : Hey, LU and his friends want it on Linux, I think we could try it for now
LU : Yeah, sure, as if I'm going to buy this.
BF : Oh no, we've made great losses here. We're never going to do anything on Linux again. And we will warn other people not to make the same mistake
It's a bit simple, I know. But some people will need this simplicity.
Now go away
Check out Blue Moon Rendering Tools .
(Hope I did that right.)
It's a shareware RenderMan-like renderer that runs under Linux (among others). Not a total 3D solution, but uses Linux power where it is most needed, on the rendering side.
Serious graphics applications have perhaps the highest UI design requirements of any application type. The tool has to be very usable and fast to attract users. (Interface speed is an area where Maya and Softimage really shine.) Delivering a big product with a polished, integrated UI hasn't happened in the OSS world yet. A plugin based architecture might help this to happen, but based on the 3D Studio Max experience I think plugin based 3D apps have a lot of strikes against them compared to a more integrated package like Maya.
As far as renderers go, a renderer must be very efficient to become popular, and the free renderers aren't efficient compared to Renderman, 3D Studio Max or Electric Image.
Hash is an unstable product with an advanced feature set but not the best interface. It is sold for a remarkably cheap price and is very popular with students but it is not an important commercial tool. It's not likely to be ported since it's not running on any Unix system, but even if it were to be ported, it wouldn't be that big a deal.
Lightwave might be a realistic Linux wish, since that 3D modelling/animation tool is already available for IRIX. At one time Lightwave was a prototypical "killer app", driving Amiga hardware sales. Maybe a nice Lightwave for Unix would drive Linux penetration onto artists' desktops.
I was big into 3D Windows software a couple of
years ago and from I remember Hash never offered
a demo version and their price was steep -- but
yes, the quality and effects were amazing.
I seriously doubt there will ever be a free
version of Hash (not even a demo) and defintately
not open source. Nonetheless, more apps is what
we need so come on down!
This is one of those multi-thousand dollar modelling packages, isn't it?
Personally, I think the open source modellers are getting to the point where they are adequate (if not ideal) for most modelling purposes.
The not open source but free modeller, Blender, from Not a Number is quite powerful, as well (though it's UI is the worst of any program I've ever used. A good example of how a UI can look good but be absolutely impossible to use). Moonlight Creator is open source, and was getting quite good; unfortunately, there's not been a release or any update by the author since June of last year.
For rendering, the open source renderers can for the most part compete with commercial packages in technical features, though do lack a bit of the UI polish.
With all that said, having a high quality, polished commercial package available would be nice!
Linux users aren't into paying for software as far as I can tell.
And I doubt that this would be free or open source.
I know user interfaces are very subjective, but have you really gotten into Blender? It's something you need to spend a few days with before your brain can 'click' with it.
I find the interface very intuative and powerful. One hand on the keyboard, and one on the mouse, and I'm blazing though models without thinking about the interface. It feels like a good race car. Not that good to look at (depending on your tastes) but everything it right where it belongs to get the work done. You focus on how to create the effect you want, not where that menu item is. That is the goal of a UI, isn't it?
Hash makes a very good product and deliberately prices it at a level that will be affordable for all (c'mon, it's the price of three games). They know they could charge $1000 or more for it, and that doing so would actually gain them some respect from their peers in the business. They don't care. Their attitude ("software even an artist can afford") is, in my opinion, just as noble as Stallman's "all software should be free".
HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA...
The more Linux 3d apps we can get, and the more multimedia support we can come up with, the closer Linux gets to being the indisputable OS for everyone.
Just to make a comment. The UI's good or bad
points are highly SUBJECTIVE based on the user.
Blender's UI is highly optimized for work and
power, not for new users to get into the field
of 3D. If someone wanted to really use Blender,
they should seriously consider checking the
various howto's on the web and/or purchasing
the extremely good and stylish manual.
Their URL is: www.blender.nl
Linux and Windows are examples of a conflict of
style and UI priorities. Linux(Unix) focuses on getting
the job done by making commands and flexibility
of programming and scripting at the command line.
This allows for faster and more effective work
to be done while making it harder to use for
new users.
Windows is easy to use for new users, but has a
limit on functionality after that initial learning
curve has been reached.
Blender is like this. Focus was on efficient use
of functions and accessibilty of functions.
After a few days of playing with Blender, even
without the manual, it becomes easier.
I had similar experiences when I alternated between
3DS MAX and TrueSpace. MAX had a good modeler, but
TrueSpace had better renderer's. So I switched
between the two and found that while Truespace's
interface is fun and easy to learn, it is highly
limiting because of the many widgets.
Max's menus were hard at first, but tinkering got
me around soon enough. Still, after the initial
learning stage, the menu's themselves were a
speed limit. I kept asking myself where the
shortcut keys were.
Blender is like this. Lot's of shortcut keys, but
virtually no menu's. Better work speed, but
slower learning.
I happen to like Blender, which is becoming better
with each new release. And while I hope it doesn't
go commercial, I wouldn't mind paying for it when
it does. This is because it IS a quality product.
The UI seems hard because people are not used to
it. Once you do get used to it, you'll find that
what seemed like UI mistakes are actually UI
improvements.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
I am rather tired of the UseLinuxBecauseItsLinux people.
I use Linux and love it. I hate MS shit. I am thinking about trying FreeBSD soon. Viva el Open Source.
But Im tired of them UseLinuxBecauseItsLinux. PromoteLinuxBecauseItsLinux.
Why should we LIE to companies and tell them to port to Linux software we know we are not going to buy?
Please, the Open Source movement does not need that. If we Open Source followers need a program, we will code it ourselves.
Only those who would actually buy their port should email them. And I am pretty sure many who wouldn't buy it will write.
I, for my self, would write: "I couldn't care less if you port your application to Linux or not. I will never buy it anyway. I would like you to port it just as it would promote my favorite OS, but don't expect me to actually buy it".
AFC.
But don't expect us to pay for it, though. Do expect us to bitch about it not being free, eh, I mean, liberated. And even if you open up the source code, expect us to bitch about it not being GPL. How else are we going to include the code in our programs, or make money selling support for it? Remember, if you don't release the code, you are just a bunch of parasites, anyways, living off other people's code (even if you did spend money hiring people to write that code).
Oh, and if you trademarked the name, we will bitch about the US patent office. OK, so you don't know what the trademark has to do with the patent office. We couldn't explain it to you either, but we will bitch about it.
Finally, we will point out to all your users that there are *real* Open Source Software doing almost the same thing and they should, instead of buying your software, and supporting your evil, immoral ways, give the money to the OSS people. Nevermind that it is years behind your program.
So, please port. We welcome you with a fist.
* NB! Anyone who disagree with any or all of the above points are braindead M$ stoogies.
Je ne parle pas francais.
"the price is steep" ??
:)
i don't really consider 200 bucks to be steep for a spline modeller of that calibre.
it's rendering engine isn't the greatest, but hey, that is what electric image is for
V
I remember that Hash cost only $200 dollars, which is a great price, compared to 3DMAX or even Lightwave. And hopefully it will give some reall compitition to Blender. Not being open source I see is a reall problem with Blender. Not because I can't make some funky change, but becuase with blender you don't even have the file format specs, not to mention plug-ins specs.
Open source modellers seam to be duplicating effort. I look and look, and mean like all last week, but I can't find one that is a complete 3D solution, or even one that provides character animation abilities. If I am wrong, and you have tried one that works, please reply. I might even try working on one that looks like it is or was going somewhere.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Bitch moan, bitch moan.
Animation master has a lot of features for a low price.
Realsoft Oy, Finland, have decided to release the successor to their 3D animation package 'Real 3D' for Linux.
Other supported systems will be Windows and probably IRIX. Amiga is most likely being dropped and maybe Mac and possibly Be will be left to third party developers.
There is no release date yet, but the software is finally entering beta testing after years of alpha testing.
See their V4 pages.
Bernd
Even the current version 3.5 of Real 3D is very powerful, the power is just hidden unter a not-so-stylish GUI. But the physical simulation features, the embedded programming language (FORTH) allowing access to almost all program functions, and the rendering engine quality and speed are smashing.
I don't think the price is fixed yet. But just like the Amiga version was always much cheaper than the Windoze-version, it might happen that the Linux version will be cheaper than the version for the "professional" (huh?) operating System "Windows NT". (It will most likely run on W'98, too)
Real 3D was always a lot cheaper than competitors like 3DS MAX (whose rendering engine really sucks, both quality- and speed-wise) or LightWave 3D, and offered much more features without hundreds of plug-ins.
Bernd
I've been looking for some free or open source modelers. Thanks!