VIZ 6 says Autodesk

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

Michael Woodcox of Autodesk posted THis message at the VIZ Newsgroup

 

http://discussion.autodesk.com/WebX?displayMessages@72.kipSaqL9CbF.14@.f19723a#1

 

here is the Message copied verbatim

 

"From: Michael Woodcox

Date: Oct/28/03 - 18:09 (GMT)

 

Many of you have expressed concern over our somewhat vague design visualization product strategy. I would like to clarify our intent and in so doing perhaps shed some light on the underlying issues which have made it difficult for us to give proper guidance in a timely manner.

 

Over the years we have watched our customers evolve the way they use our technology for the purpose of seeing into the future life of a design project. At one time there where a handful of skilled users who were able to bridge the divide between art and technology to develop Visualizations. Now that design practice is moving ever more rapidly towards a 3d paradigm as evidenced by ADT, Revit, and Inventor, the expectations around visualization have expanded. Our customers range from those who demand the best and most advanced technology for remaining competitive to those who demand something

more simple, direct, and transparent.

 

This broadening market has presented us with substantial challenges. Those of you who are more advanced might feel ignored. Simplifying an inherently complex task like visualization is difficult - much more difficult than just exposing all the rough edges of technology to someone expert enough to tackle it. VIZ Render required a considerable amount of time and effort to develop. Simplification also brings with it inevitable compromises - one must give up some feature areas so that the whole becomes more approachable. We learned much about bringing advanced visualization capabilities closer to the designer needing "casual visualization" and this experience has informed many of the new features in 3ds max 6. It Is our intention to continue developing more advanced features after we complete what is now a three part cycle.

 

 

The third part of the cycle is our current focus, developing the

intermediate solution - VIZ 6. We are taking all we have learned from VIZ

Render and 3ds max 6 and beginning development of the next version of VIZ

guided by some important goals derived from interviews with our customers.

One of the most consistent requests has been for better interoperability

between VIZ and max as well as more complete and reliable features. The next

version of VIZ will be a direct subset of 3ds max, removing the more

advanced animation and rendering features of max to produce a more

affordable product. VIZ 6 will have the same basic feature set as before

with much of the additional performance and organizational advantages of 3ds

max 6. There will be no features in VIZ 6 that are not shared by 3ds max 6.

This important goal will allow us to keep these and future releases of VIZ

and max in sync so that files created in VIZ can be opened directly in max

with no loss of data or image quality. Our goal is to coordinate the

releases of VIZ and max much more closely in the future and shorten the time

interval between. The process of developing new design visualization

features will therefore be focused on 3ds max as the platform from which

future versions of VIZ will be derived."

 

 

michael.woodcox@autodesk.com

 

Design Visualization Product Manager

 

Discreet

 

a division of Autodesk

 

The landmark @ One Market

 

San Francisco, CA 94107

 

****

 

re-posted by Randy

[HeDaCoM]

so. you can open a VIZ6 file with a DWG linked drawing... and render it on max 6.... but you cannot reload it on max 6. :/

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

HeDaCoM,

 

VIZ 6 will have the same basic feature set as before with much of the additional performance and organizational advantages of 3ds

max 6.

..

 

so. you can open a VIZ6 file with a DWG linked drawing... and render it on max 6.... but you cannot reload it on max 6. :/

..

o really ?? it sounds like FileLinking has been removed

 

1x Step forward 1x Step backwards

 

FileLinking is essential for creative workflow and design changes

 

Autodesk needs to hire some "real" people or allow ALL of us who use the software(s) to Beta Test it

 

so That it works the way That it should (wishful Thinking, dreaming out Loud)

 

****

 

i dont have Max anything so i have no comparison

whatever These guys are smoking it must be good.

 

i want some Too.

 

****

 

Thanks

 

Randy

[Zortea]

Maybe I´m just missing the point, but what happens with the Viz 5?

Or Autodesk is jumping the number(maybe some supertition)

[doimus]

They're doing it for advertising reasons (nobody would buy Viz FIVE if they already had Max SIX ) and to avoid confusion....

 

That's nothing uncommon in software industry, Microsoft did it 10 years ago when they jumped From Word for Win 2.0 to WfW 6.0 just to keep up with the DOS version wich then was at 6.0 ....

 

At least we're still getting numbers and not some odd two-letter nonsense nomenclature!

[stefkeB]

VIZ6 = derived from max6, that is, every single feature of VIZ6 is allready available in max6. Synchronisation of the two products was needed. And don't complain that max6 doesn't adress architects & visualisation artists: this is not simply a game-oriented update: there is much to say for visualisation in the new max6.

 

The VIZ4-file linking is not fully ready in max6 (because of all the extra max-features that need to be supported and tested). They are working on it. They just released the part that at least is capable of loading AutoCAD 2004 drawings.

 

There was a discussion about file linking (I think on the Autodesk VIZ discussion boards), where some good suggestions have been made. I suggested putting everything from XRef and File linking together and let the system support multiple filetypes (*.3ds, *.dwg, *.max etc...).

I think they were very much listening to users.

 

---

 

I just upgraded to max6 from using VIZ4 (and VIZ Render) and it is a marvellous new version. I like it very much.