Stingray no longer progresses past 1.9?

claydough · Dec 2017

Although Bitsquid development is ending...
1.9 will Still be available with Maya LT and Max subscriptions apparently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7FJEtFGOhE

Eric Chadwick · Dec 2017

Haha I think everyone saw that coming a mile away. I can see how maybe Autodesk justified it at the start as a way to improve their game asset workflows.

Here's to hoping 3ds Max Interactive keeps its legs. After seeing their demos at Autodesk University I was all hyped about using VR for editing in Max. But it's still a really cumbersome idea, once you get past the sexiness factor.

I do think in-game VR or AR live editing is the future though.

Axi5 · Dec 2017

Eric Chadwick said:

Haha I think everyone saw that coming a mile away. I can see how maybe Autodesk justified it at the start as a way to improve their game asset workflows.

Here's to hoping 3ds Max Interactive keeps its legs. After seeing their demos at Autodesk University I was all hyped about using VR for editing in Max. But it's still a really cumbersome idea, once you get past the sexiness factor.

I do think in-game VR or AR live editing is the future though.

Outside of Autodesk's track record, the team behind this were very excited showing off Stingray originally then development slowed, likely due to Adks's cuts and management. The nail in the coffin for me was when Unity announced that Adsk gave them source code access to FBX for transfer of StingrayPBS materials. It was pretty much the only feature people liked about Stingray (though there were plenty of other good reasons).

Edit:
Can anyone see an official statement from Autodesk?

Edit Edit:
Found it in a FAQ of all places:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/stingray/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/stingray-end-of-sale-faq.html

@Eric Chadwick

Autodesk will no longer develop Autodesk Stingray as a separate product, but will continue to include Stingray functionality as part of Maya LT and 3ds Max (3ds Max Interactive).

Kraftwerk · Dec 2017

In the end what pretty much every software getting bought be Autodesk faces. Can't say i didn't see this coming. Now waiting for Mudbox to finally die its final death.

thomasp · Dec 2017

isn't this a relatively new engine? a quick google makes it sound like it was introduced in 2015, is that correct?

Zack Maxwell · Dec 2017

thomasp said:

isn't this a relatively new engine? a quick google makes it sound like it was introduced in 2015, is that correct?

Yep. They wasted a huge amount of resources on something that anyone could have told them was a terrible idea, and then very quickly abandoned it after realizing what everyone else already knew.

Kwramm · Dec 2017

few years ago AD came to use to demo new stuff...
AD: tell us what would be most useful to you
us: stronger interop with 3rd party tools and engines, rather than just sending FBXs around, like with Unity, UE4, CryEngine, etc.
AD: well, we have that, but with Stingray! <continues to show us some really nice inetgration>
us: but you said it's all Stingray only and no plans to port it? None of our clients uses Stingray!
AD:....uhhhh, next topic... let us show you Bifrost....

Mehran Khan · Dec 2017

Mehran Khan · Dec 2017

All of those resources could have gone into improving mudbox or max.

Joopson · Dec 2017

Mehran Khan said:

All of those resources could have gone into improving mudbox or max.

To be fair, I believe the development of stingray did spill over into Maya and Max, with their cool new PBR viewport shaders, which are really helpful and lovely. I'm sure that's not the only case, either, it's just the one I benefited from first-hand.

thomasp · Dec 2017

ok, so i didn't realise that it was in fact not something autodesk had developed themselves rather recently but instead bought from another developer. still, two years is nothing as far as product longevity is concerned.

mudbox, you're next!

Mehran Khan · Dec 2017

Joopson said:

Mehran Khan said:

All of those resources could have gone into improving mudbox or max.

To be fair, I believe the development of stingray did spill over into Maya and Max, with their cool new PBR viewport shaders, which are really helpful and lovely. I'm sure that's not the only case, either, it's just the one I benefited from first-hand.

Max has pbr view port shaders? didn't knew that. am still on max 2016 btw

Joopson · Dec 2017

To be fair, I'm not a max user, and Maya's stingray-based shader is awesome. But looking it up, seems like Max might not have it.

Cibo · Dec 2017

Autodesk buys bitsquid June 2014
Unreal Engine for free March 2015

Free Unreal 4 kills Stingray as standalone solution in my opinion.

I wish they bundle Maya LT + Stingray Renderer (or direkt unreal4 plugin) and Mudbox. Thats where a nice and cheap solution for everything a hobbyst need. Mudbox was very good, not powerful like zbrush but very easy. Dont understand why not integrate the Mudbox tech as the sculpt solution.

Axi5 · Dec 2017

Cibo said:

Autodesk buys bitsquid June 2014
Unreal Engine for free March 2015

Free Unreal 4 kills Stingray as standalone solution in my opinion.

I wish they bundle Maya LT + Stingray Renderer (or direkt unreal4 plugin) and Mudbox. Thats where a nice and cheap solution for everything a hobbyst need. Mudbox was very good, not powerful like zbrush but very easy. Dont understand why not integrate the Mudbox tech as the sculpt solution.

Regarding Mudbox integration, I'm pretty sure that's what they are doing/have done with Maya 2016 introducing new sculpt tools, but it's damn slow. I also don't expect them to kill this software off (just yet), apparently they've just got themselves a new manager so someone in Adsk sees the potential and personally I think the more sculpting packages the better.

radiancef0rge · Dec 2017

the original bitsquid team departed autodesk and started OurMachinery, most of the Stockholm has been gone. Dev time has not been lost its been used for AR/VR and 3ds max interactive. The shading work done in Stingray was migrated to the PBS Stingray shader in Max(?)/Maya

spacefrog · Dec 2017

Joopson said:

To be fair, I'm not a max user, and Maya's stingray-based shader is awesome. But looking it up, seems like Max might not have it.

Max has it , but it's somewhat hidden inside the DirectX shader

oglu · Dec 2017

Axi5 said:

Cibo said:

Autodesk buys bitsquid June 2014
Unreal Engine for free March 2015

Free Unreal 4 kills Stingray as standalone solution in my opinion.

I wish they bundle Maya LT + Stingray Renderer (or direkt unreal4 plugin) and Mudbox. Thats where a nice and cheap solution for everything a hobbyst need. Mudbox was very good, not powerful like zbrush but very easy. Dont understand why not integrate the Mudbox tech as the sculpt solution.

Regarding Mudbox integration, I'm pretty sure that's what they are doing/have done with Maya 2016 introducing new sculpt tools, but it's damn slow. I also don't expect them to kill this software off (just yet), apparently they've just got themselves a new manager so someone in Adsk sees the potential and personally I think the more sculpting packages the better.

what they did with the mudbox tech was to support the new blendshape manger... its wasnt ment to be a full blown sculpting solution...
and yes mudbox isnt dead...

Axi5 · Dec 2017

oglu said:

Axi5 said:

Cibo said:

Autodesk buys bitsquid June 2014
Unreal Engine for free March 2015

Free Unreal 4 kills Stingray as standalone solution in my opinion.

I wish they bundle Maya LT + Stingray Renderer (or direkt unreal4 plugin) and Mudbox. Thats where a nice and cheap solution for everything a hobbyst need. Mudbox was very good, not powerful like zbrush but very easy. Dont understand why not integrate the Mudbox tech as the sculpt solution.

Regarding Mudbox integration, I'm pretty sure that's what they are doing/have done with Maya 2016 introducing new sculpt tools, but it's damn slow. I also don't expect them to kill this software off (just yet), apparently they've just got themselves a new manager so someone in Adsk sees the potential and personally I think the more sculpting packages the better.

what they did with the mudbox tech was to support the new blendshape manger... its wasnt ment to be a full blown sculpting solution...
and yes mudbox isnt dead...

I know that, that's all they ever demo'd it as. It's still the same functionality wise, it's probably just slower due to Maya carrying a lot more data on it's meshes & many other reasons, but yeah other than that it's the same stuff. It's not to say it can't be used as a sculpting solution either! It's just not optimal.

Bellsey · Dec 2017

The premise (to begin with anyway) of incorporating some Mudbox technology into Maya was to overhaul the current sculpting, painting and brush system - Artisan. Maya' Artisan has been there for some time, since 1.0 and though very good, overtime had become a tad clunky. Other tools and software had come along and were just better even for simple rudimentary sculpting. And apart from real heavy stuff, you often might want to do some stuff in the 3D software without having to export to something like zbrush, especially with something like pose space deformers. Autodesk have announced recently that they're reinvesting in Mudbox, which imo is a good thing, but I wonder if it's too little too late?

As for Stingray, personally its a shame what's happened to it, but frankly I'm not surprised with what's been happening recently.

I could understand why AD wanted a game engine. At the time we had a some good middleware solutions, but no end product that encapsulated them all. Unity and Unreal may have been acquisition targets, but they would have been expensive and were already mature technologies. Something like Bitsquid was new, kinda fresh and was young enough to be taken further with some investment. At the time when I was at AD, I thought it was a smart acquisition, the tech was good, had credibility of shipped titles, and the having visited the guys in Sweden, I could see there was some good potential.

When I left AD in 2015, there had been alot of good work and progress with workflows and interop with both Maya and Max and I think there was alot of positivity around Stingray.
Personally I think the problem may have been how AD launched Stingray, as it never seemed to get off on the right foot.
It was planned for launch at GDC Europe in the August of 2015, and it just seemed to limp onto the market with hardly any big announcements, keynotes or presentations.
The games engine space was (and still is) competitive and yet AD seemed to enter the market by making Stingray all but invisible. Then, there was the idea of a 30 day trial upon which people would have to pay subs to continue Stingray. This was puzzling really when you could download and use Unity or UE for free. if you want developers to look at technology and consider using it, then you need to make your technology open and easy for them to start doing stuff. AD seemed to do the opposite, imo.

z0ltan · Dec 2017

I mean they did release this monstrosity targeted at people who arguably have a higher standard for visual quality in things...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgANdVp3aQ8&ab_channel=Autodesk

I remember watching it and saying "Really? Time to get into modo..."

kadeschui · Jan 2018

z0ltan said:

I mean they did release this monstrosity targeted at people who arguably have a higher standard for visual quality in things...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgANdVp3aQ8&ab_channel=Autodesk

I remember watching it and saying "Really? Time to get into modo..."

LMAO you just made my day with that link...they hell were they thinking

Axi5 · Jan 2018

Optimus said:

i will miss mudbox

It hasn't gone anywhere yet:
http://www.cgchannel.com/2017/10/autodesk-to-reinvest-in-mudbox/

Stingray no longer progresses past 1.9?

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