tom trashed?

[Gattomanzo]

this morning i have noticed that tom (child idiot god) is no more moderator of any part of NL forums.

 

is this a sign of NL redemption?

 

or i missed something these months?

[olbo]

Hmm, ... if I'm not wrong Juan was telling something about that

at SIGGRAPH ... so mverta should be next, if I recall right.

 

take care

Oleg

[Adehus]

Guess you can't run a solid dictatorship without the occasional 'purge'.

[Ernest Burden III]

I don't know about Mike, but NL persons did say Tom was being relieved of duty.

[Maximus3D]

Not true, Tom didn't wanna be a admin anymore due to lack of time (newborn child) and work and personal stuff. So he said thanks but no thanks, it's no dark deep conspiracy going on. I talked to him and asked him why not long ago.

 

Mike i don't know about, but i guess he's busy working.

 

/ Max

[Fran]

If NL was going to relieve tom of moderator duties because of his performance in the job, they would (should, could) have done it a long time ago. Juan probably knew tom planned to step down and left it up to speculation as to why.

[Ernest Burden III]

Why Tom is gone as child-God is not important. His leaving is all that matters. I asked the NL folks about that in response to their pressing me to get re-involved in their product. They said they recognized that many mistakes had been made, and that they realized how important we arch-vis people are to their business. I take that as more than hollow words since they were paying to be sponsors of the arch-vis conference.

 

There is a prophesy that once MWR v1 was released Victor would hand day-to-day control over to other (more reasonable, likely more honest and honorable) people. I am seeing signs...

 

I think parenting may teach Tom a few things, as it has taught many of the rest of us.

[Adehus]

I asked the NL folks about that in response to their pressing me to get re-involved in their product. They said they recognized that many mistakes had been made, and that they realized how important we arch-vis people are to their business. I take that as more than hollow words since they were paying to be sponsors of the arch-vis conference.

 

NextLimit may genuinely want arch-viz $$$, but they'll have an extremely hard time convincing me (and I'd guess most of us) that they are going to change their ways. Their actions have been inexcusable in the extreme up to this point, and the only prudent thing to do is to allow them to be swallowed up by the emerging MLT competition.

 

I know I've been particularly up in arms about these guys from the beginning, but I honestly and deeply believe that nobody should want to get involved with them any more than they already are- be they a user, reseller or arch-viz related organization. They cast a shadow of doubt on everything that comes near them, as we have clearly seen with the emergence of Fryrender.

 

I don't think that Fry is run by the NL guys, but can anyone seriously say that they didn't have that thought cross their minds? Didn't think so. That should give you a good sense of how disreputable NL is.

 

Edit: And to make this post vaguely thread related, I'll say that in some respects I think it's unfortunate that Tom left/was removed/whatever from his moderator position. The depth of his arrogance made him an excellent representative for NL. He was the once place on NL's web presence where there was actually truth in advertising- what you saw from him is what you got from NL.

[Ernest Burden III]

NextLimit may genuinely want arch-viz $$$, but they'll have an extremely hard time convincing me (and I'd guess most of us) that they are going to change their ways.

 

Same here. But I was was looking for any positive signs I could find. I see a few. When you expect so little from someone its easy to find progress.

[Adehus]

...and because I'm a bit over-caffeinated, one last thought:

 

I would interpret NL's desire to try to 'play nice' as a sign that they're hurting for cash in a big way.

 

Should anyone want to purchase software from a company that shows signs of instability? Their products are only worth considering- and I use that word advisedly -if you feel comfortable that NL will actually be around long enough to develop them to a point where they're useable.

 

Caveat Emptor

[AdamT]

Juan told me at Siggraph that Tom and MVerta were being removed as moderators because they were "not the right people for the job" or something like that. Who knows what the truth is? Tom's gone, MVerta isn't.

[Devin Johnston]

What we’re seeing is the result of Juan taking over control of Maxwell development. I spoke with him for quite a while at the Design Viz conference and among other things he acknowledges that NL had really screwed up and made some serious mistakes. He said Tom and Mike would be leaving but didn't indicate who would replace them, or why. Juan was brought in to fix the mess and so far I'd say that he is doing a great job of it. Nothing is going to excuse what NL did in the past but I don't think we will be seeing that kind of abuse again. Juan really want's to make Maxwell work for everyone, and he's trying to make it right even though he didn't cause the mess in the first place.

 

As for Tom leaving I have mixed feelings, on one hand he has a lot of technical experience with Maxwell which makes him valuable. On the other hand he is very arrogant and his English can be difficult to decode and I think that language barrier has caused a lot of problems. I hope they can find someone who is even tempered and has a good understanding of Maxwell but we'll have to wait and see.

[Fran]

...As for Tom leaving I have mixed feelings, on one hand he has a lot of technical experience with Maxwell which makes him valuable.

 

He is still a Next Limit employee and technical support presence on the forum. I wasn't keen on his moderating practices, but he has been supportive and respectful on the technical side.

[AdamT]

Agree, Tom knows what he's talking about when it comes to M~R--he just has no business being a moderator. Actually he's pretty annoying even as a tech rep., as he seems almost incapable of giving a straight answer. It's like having the Bat Computer as your tech support guy.

[Adehus]

Juan was brought in to fix the mess and so far I'd say that he is doing a great job of it.

 

Juan was one of the few helpful employees on the forum... I do have respect for the guy.

 

Still, I can't say I can see how he's had any effect. The software's still incredibly buggy, the updates are rare and generally inadequate. The main reason their forum is calm is because nobody seems to go there anymore (except to share photos and youtube clips.) I'm asking in all sincereness- what has changed for the better?

 

If NL was serious about a 'turnaround' they'd make an announcement stating their plans. At minimum they need to tell us what they're doing and why it's needed. Otherwise, why should we care about them or belive what they say?? Web rumors are worthless.

[Devin Johnston]

Still, I can't say I can see how he's had any effect. The software's still incredibly buggy, the updates are rare and generally inadequate. The main reason their forum is calm is because nobody seems to go there anymore (except to share photos and youtube clips.) I'm asking in all sincereness- what has changed for the better?

If NL was serious about a 'turnaround' they'd make an announcement stating their plans. At minimum they need to tell us what they're doing and why it's needed. Otherwise, why should we care about them or belive what they say?? Web rumors are worthless.

 

I think the fact that V1 and V1.1 were fairly successful releases instead of flops like all the RC's were is evidence that they have turned the corner. I'd point to things like Maxwell's new web site where you can share MXM files freely as a good sign that someone over there is trying to engage the community in a positive way. I don't know how long it's been since you've visited the forum but now instead of post after post of flaming and bickering people are actually producing work and technical issues are being addressed as they should be. There was obviously a lot of resentment from many people on the forum for quite a while my self among them as a result of everything that happened. It's going to take time for people to come back and for the good artists to become interested again. I don't feel sorry for NL because they did this to them selves but I do see attempts to fix the problems and I hope they succeed and I believe they will.

 

 

I would never expect NL as a company to come out and say they screwed up please forgive us, but I've heard this sentiment from Juan and even Victor. As for them telling us what there working on and what is to come I don't see that changing since they've always been tight lipped and they don't want to give any of their competition ideas. You've seen how quickly other companies have copied them (physical sky, physical cameras) then there are the rip off company's like Fry. I can't blame them for wanting to keep things under wraps, I'd do the same thing even though it's frustrating for the customer it's what's best for Maxwell.

[AJLynn]

Devin-

 

I'm on the verge of having enough computing power to use Maxwell, the materials site seems useful, but one thing I'd like to ask in a serious and non-flaming way.

 

Is Maxwell stable enough yet? I haven't touched 1.1 but 1.0 still had a lot of crashes. Can you use plugins and Studio, and exposure, light mixer and bokeh in MXCL with a reasonable degree of confidence, if you have a stable system with 2 gigs?

[Devin Johnston]

Devin-

Is Maxwell stable enough yet? I haven't touched 1.1 but 1.0 still had a lot of crashes. Can you use plugins and Studio, and exposure, light mixer and bokeh in MXCL with a reasonable degree of confidence, if you have a stable system with 2 gigs?

 

If you’re still using V1 you need to move on to V1.1, it's much more stable. I use it with the 3D Studio Max plugin which is still unstable at time but no more so than with V1. The light mixer still has issues if you use it with network rendering, you can use it at your own risk. 2gigs of ram is minimum but that should be enough if your not doing anything extremely large.

 

Over all it still needs work, mainly in the plugin and network rendering department, these are all issues that I've made sure Juan knows about. I have used it successfully though on several projects that are very complex and the results were very good. So my suggestion is if you’re going to use Maxwell use V1.1.

[AJLynn]

Actually I haven't been using Maxwell at all the last few months, the vis work I've done has been all about mental ray and time/cost saving. But I'm moving into a better position so I'm reevaluating my tech needs and I think it may be time to give it another go. Thanks.

[Adehus]

I think the fact that V1 and V1.1 were fairly successful releases instead of flops like all the RC's were is evidence that they have turned the corner.

 

You're setting a very low bar for 'successful'- I download every release, and get frustrated after 15 minutes because of all of the bugs- they're everywhere. And I hate the material editor with a passion. Never was a problem with Beta. Just because the V1 and V1.1 doesn't vomit sparkly crud all over your renderings like the RCs would does not make it successful.

 

I would never expect NL as a company to come out and say they screwed up please forgive us, but I've heard this sentiment from Juan and even Victor. As for them telling us what there working on and what is to come I don't see that changing since they've always been tight lipped and they don't want to give any of their competition ideas.

 

I wouldn't expect them to say that either, but it's EXACTLY what they need to do. For a person to change, they need to acknowledge that they made a mistake that requires changing. Same for companies.

 

None of NL's innovations are homegrown. We've all seen the research papers that MLT, physical sky, and physical camera have been derived from. NL, at best, were innovators in implementing existing ideas- like Apple with Xerox. This is one time where I'm waiting for Microsoft to come along.

 

Fryrender has obviously been watching NL very closely and seems to be going to great lengths to avoid NL's mistakes. Competition is good, and it is impressive how quickly Fry and other MLT renderers have developed. Actually makes me wonder what NL's been doing for the past few years- that is, beyond thinking up new ways to screw over customers.

[Devin Johnston]

You're setting a very low bar for 'successful'- I download every release, and get frustrated after 15 minutes because of all of the bugs- they're everywhere. And I hate the material editor with a passion. Never was a problem with Beta. Just because the V1 and V1.1 doesn't vomit sparkly crud all over your renderings like the RCs would does not make it successful..

You asked me what has changed for the better and my point was that they have made at least some tangible effort to make things better than they were. All of your points are valid but with V1.1 I'm at least able to create work and make Maxwell work for me, with the RC's and the beta that was almost imposable in a professional environment.

 

I wouldn't expect them to say that either, but it's EXACTLY what they need to do. For a person to change, they need to acknowledge that they made a mistake that requires changing. Same for companies.

Adehus I would love to get a big warm NL apology but I really don't think there is any chance that will ever happen. I agree that it would go along way to bringing back those that left and probably getting new customers but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

None of NL's innovations are homegrown. We've all seen the research papers that MLT, physical sky, and physical camera have been derived from. NL, at best, were innovators in implementing existing ideas- like Apple with Xerox.

Your right they weren’t homegrown but just because they didn't develop the theories them selves doesn’t mean that they aren't deserving of some credit. They were the first to take all these ideas and put them together to make something that we all agree is an amazing render engine. And if it wasn't that big of a deal then why are all these other companies scrambling to copy everything they are doing.

[Adehus]

Adehus I would love to get a big warm NL apology but I really don't think there is any chance that will ever happen. I agree that it would go along way to bringing back those that left and probably getting new customers but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

I'm not holding my breath, but as long as they don't admit their mistakes I'm not holding back my opinions on the matter either. If they don't make it clear that they're a different company than they were before, I'm not going to just assume that they are. They're fools for screwing everyone over and then erecting a wall of silence... and that is exactly the behavior one would expect from the 'old' NL!

 

Your right they weren’t homegrown but just because they didn't develop the theories them selves doesn’t mean that they aren't deserving of some credit.

 

You're right, they brought these ideas together in one package, they were the first in that respect. But the reason that everyone else is scrambling to get their own MLT renderer out is because NL executed their ideas so incredibly poorly.

 

From a business perspective it's a no-brainer- NL generated immense interest in pulling together these well known ideas into one package and then they failed to deliver. If someone else thinks they can deliver the goods, they will. And we'll all be better off for it.

[AdamT]

Somewhat OT, but every time I take a deep breath and dive back in the Maxwell waters there's something just under the surface that bites me on the ass.

 

In my latest venture I was wanting to render a file on one of my backup computers. No problem, right? Just use the -b:[path] command to tell Maxwell where to find the bitmaps? Didn't work. Even though the tex were in a shared folder and I specified the network path, Maxwell couldn't find them. No problem--at least Studio asks for the location now--so I specifiy the paths manually.

 

New problem: Studio does *not* ask for the location of .mxm files. No problem--just load them manually, right? Wrong. With Studio's lack of heirarchy information I had about 500 objects and 500 corresponding materials to go through. As usual with M~R my effort ended with an emphatic "f*#k it!" And I just had to wait for my main computer to get freed up.

 

Long story short: sure it would be nice if NL apologized and whatnot, but I'd much rather have them fix the app and plugins so you can use it without losing your mind.

[Devin Johnston]

AdamT, you are much braver than I am, I would never depend on Studio to render out my work, and it’s just not reliable in my view. Having said that Max isn't to much better but at least it's controllable and somewhat predictable.