No, he means Microsoft. M$ owned Softimage 3D during versions 3.8 and 3.9, and nearly wrecked it. AVID bought Softimage from M$ and has done a wonderful job in regaining the lead Softimage had over everyone before M$ screwed it up. M$ nearly nuked the preeminent 3D ap for motion picture production (it had been around a helluva lot longer than Maya, rendered faster and better, was more stable. AVID is still struggling with M$ code put in during the early phases of Sumatra (the beta of XSI - which I worked on the testing of).The new XSI has astounding render quality thanks to the use of caustics, global illuminaton, and final gathering. It kicks Maya's ass in that respect. It's sub-division surface modeling is faster, and as usual, it's workflow is way better than Maya's. ILM just purchased 500 seats of XSI. Also, since it's now a part of the AVID family, it's fully compatible with the OMF capability that AVID possesses. Now with Unity, you can transfer an entire fully edited piece with multiple layers, transitions, effects across any major platform in seconds. What this means is that now a commercial project can be transferred seemlessly with no data loss between a studio that uses Mac, to one using IRIX, to another using NT, and one on Linux and back again - literally in seconds. I've seen a 30 second commercial with 742 layered effects, wipes, and transistions transfer between all the OS I described above, in the time it's taken you to read this post. Amazing stuff.
Especially in the case of desktop video, the entire "environment" is of major importance. Not just the killer ap, but the entire structure of the system to maximize animation or video editing/compositing workflow, and ultimately and most importantly, throughput out to analog solutions like videotape.
Output to videotape in particular is a real problem on Windows based systems. I know everyone is firewire and digital hyper, but the average consumer is still using videotape, and it is still the most common format. Unfortunately, unless you own a system (like an AVID) that guarantees that you won't experience dropped frames, your input and output to video is shit.
And ultimately in addition to more animation systems porting to linux (Softimage XSI is also porting, and costs less than Maya with way better rendering, and rocksolid sub-d modeling tools, and Blender, which is free and runs on every OS known to man), there must also be more compositing and editing solutions.
Otherwise you don't have a complete production pipeline. And with all such software going for $4k and up, as an independent producer, the last thing you're going to want to have to address is getting an entirely new system, sporting a different OS, just to get your work out to the client.
I think that it's largely a good decision in that it says that it was a violation of the sanctity of the home (which has traditionally been afforded profound protection by the Courts), and at minimum would require a search warrant.
However, I do feel that the "widely available" part is poorly constructed in that, like the trimester approach in the Roe v. Wade decision, it leaves open a hole where someone can warp the decision's original intent. More case law is going to have to be written to clarify and lock up that hole. Hopefully the good guys will get there first (but don't hold your breath). Scalia's intent in the decision is right here, but he left gaps.
I'm frankly just surprized that his intent seems to be on target here - that simply because there's some spiffy new technology, it doesn't mean that the police can circumvent proper proceedure or the individual's Constitutional protections. Usually Scalia's off the mark, which is probably why so many posters are suspicious of it.
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No, he means Microsoft. M$ owned Softimage 3D during versions 3.8 and 3.9, and nearly wrecked it. AVID bought Softimage from M$ and has done a wonderful job in regaining the lead Softimage had over everyone before M$ screwed it up. M$ nearly nuked the preeminent 3D ap for motion picture production (it had been around a helluva lot longer than Maya, rendered faster and better, was more stable. AVID is still struggling with M$ code put in during the early phases of Sumatra (the beta of XSI - which I worked on the testing of).The new XSI has astounding render quality thanks to the use of caustics, global illuminaton, and final gathering. It kicks Maya's ass in that respect. It's sub-division surface modeling is faster, and as usual, it's workflow is way better than Maya's. ILM just purchased 500 seats of XSI. Also, since it's now a part of the AVID family, it's fully compatible with the OMF capability that AVID possesses. Now with Unity, you can transfer an entire fully edited piece with multiple layers, transitions, effects across any major platform in seconds. What this means is that now a commercial project can be transferred seemlessly with no data loss between a studio that uses Mac, to one using IRIX, to another using NT, and one on Linux and back again - literally in seconds. I've seen a 30 second commercial with 742 layered effects, wipes, and transistions transfer between all the OS I described above, in the time it's taken you to read this post. Amazing stuff.
Especially in the case of desktop video, the entire "environment" is of major importance. Not just the killer ap, but the entire structure of the system to maximize animation or video editing/compositing workflow, and ultimately and most importantly, throughput out to analog solutions like videotape. Output to videotape in particular is a real problem on Windows based systems. I know everyone is firewire and digital hyper, but the average consumer is still using videotape, and it is still the most common format. Unfortunately, unless you own a system (like an AVID) that guarantees that you won't experience dropped frames, your input and output to video is shit. And ultimately in addition to more animation systems porting to linux (Softimage XSI is also porting, and costs less than Maya with way better rendering, and rocksolid sub-d modeling tools, and Blender, which is free and runs on every OS known to man), there must also be more compositing and editing solutions. Otherwise you don't have a complete production pipeline. And with all such software going for $4k and up, as an independent producer, the last thing you're going to want to have to address is getting an entirely new system, sporting a different OS, just to get your work out to the client.
I think that it's largely a good decision in that it says that it was a violation of the sanctity of the home (which has traditionally been afforded profound protection by the Courts), and at minimum would require a search warrant. However, I do feel that the "widely available" part is poorly constructed in that, like the trimester approach in the Roe v. Wade decision, it leaves open a hole where someone can warp the decision's original intent. More case law is going to have to be written to clarify and lock up that hole. Hopefully the good guys will get there first (but don't hold your breath). Scalia's intent in the decision is right here, but he left gaps. I'm frankly just surprized that his intent seems to be on target here - that simply because there's some spiffy new technology, it doesn't mean that the police can circumvent proper proceedure or the individual's Constitutional protections. Usually Scalia's off the mark, which is probably why so many posters are suspicious of it.