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from the You-Can-(Not)-Buy-Expensive-Software dept.
Khara and Anime/CG production company "Project Studio Q, Inc." are preparing to switch their primary 3D CG tools to Blender. Blender will be used for some parts of "EVANGELION:3.0+1.0" they are currently working on.
Khara has been using Autodesk "3ds Max" as their primary tool so far. "EVANGELION:3.0+1.0" production is mainly done with 3ds Max. They are now starting to switch from 3ds Max to Blender. Usually the reason being "due to differences such as quality and functionalities", but Khara's reason is different.
Hiroyasu Kobayashi, General Manager of Digital Dpt. and Director of the Board of Khara and President of Studio Q, and Daisuke Onitsuka, CGI Director of Digital Dpt. of Khara and General Manager of Production Dpt. of Studio Q, told about their situation.
[Onitsuka] "We need cooperative work with friend companies for our production. However, many of those companies are small or middle-sized, so if we stick to 3ds Max it will cause higher management costs. ... While we still have the challenge whether a new partner company can use Blender or not, but at least, cost-wise is much simpler, so we are proposing them to use Blender as we use it."
[...] [Takumi] Shigyo: "We are getting more artists that started by using Blender in Studio Q. We are also seeing more high quality works by Blender users from high school students in Award:Q. I expect these new generations to be the majority working at studios in the future."
https://www.blender.org/user-stories/japanese-anime-studio-khara-moving-to-blender/
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @02:54PM (1 child)
In my previous job I used a CAD/CAM design package which had a notoriously fickle native file format (ver X.Yr2 not reading ver X.Yr1 files, let alone ver W.xxx files, fun things like that...), mind you, that was an improvement on the previous package which, when we got a major version update, happily opened the drawing files generated by the previous version, but generated garbage g-code from them.
Anyhoo, we had a visit from the engineer to service the main CNC one day, fired up the system, went to the design workstation to send through a test job, I casually mentioned Autodesk might be purchasing the company who make this software...first time I've ever seen someone's face pale at the mention of their name, he'd been on the road servicing equipment for a while and had been out of the normal rumour loop, as well as servicing the machines his company also provided lucrative training for this package, which he also delivered (mostly on-site).
Long story short, Autodesk indeed bought them out, then discontinued the software, and the last I checked, the company the engineer worked for is promoting a.n.other design package..and not an Autodesk one.
So, the lot I worked for, as long as they keep the same version of the software I used active, if they lose the g-code files, they'll stand a reasonable chance of regenerating them from my old drawings, and modifying them if needs be, if they lose the hardware keys for the software, then they're fscked (as i know if that day happens, i'll get a call, I've tried reading the drawings using pyrate cracked copies of the software, not one opened them..I'd be telling them to fuck off anyway, as I'm still annoyed about the way I was 'let go', but I do so like to be in the position of telling them how royally fucked they really are..)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @07:19PM
Just don't tell me about CAD formats as it looks like their inventors were interested less in applying optimization to their descriptions, and more in applying prohibited chemicals to themselves :).
One of leading parametric modeller format, used also s output in 3D scanners. The format, called internally totally different than outside, has an interesting "Deflate-it" approach. There are no record separators nor clearly visible data structures. The contents after header are Deflated. Then it deflates to set of Deflated records. The reading procedure is: Deflate all the way, until it stops giving comprehensible data. When it gives garbage, try to deflate the garbage too, as e.g. Deflated mesh is a name plus a set of Deflated polygons which is a name plus a set of Deflated lines, being names with a set of Deflated points consisting of three Deflated coordinates. The "11" unused identifier means that further deflation will give garbage... except for "text" and "comment" records, where deflating remaining garbage one more time will give formatting info of course. And if someone licenses the format, gets a library to use blindly.