Guys,
I find these responses very interesting. For a long time I visited and hung around a user-site developed for Imagine, the 3D program started on the Amiga and ported to the PC. Don't remember Imagine? How about Silver, and then Turbo Silver, Imagine's predecessors. Too far back? Martin had something called Multiplane and Animation Stand (hard to remember exactly) back in those days. The point is Imagine is gone and so is that user site. Funny thing is, people on that site always talked about how much better "feature x" was in Imagine than in today's packages. Really? Seriously? For a program that hadn't been updated in Donkey's Years?
IMHO, Martin never let a Marketing Opportunty get in the way of annoying or alienating any and everyone. Now, Animation Master has soldiered on, but it still looks like it belongs on Windows XP at best, more like Windows 98. If Blender's UI is difficult and off-putting, AM has had a lot longer to build a coherent, approachable UI, but it still hasn't happened. AM is still hard to use and looks dated and sorry guys -- ugly.
So what a jerk I am for saying all these negative things. What are my great ideas, huh Big Mouth, how are you going to fix things?
Okay, so I worked on the beta test team for the last iterations of Shade 3D, a program that for most of my computing life I found ugly and difficult to use. Turns out it's actually a very nice program, once I got used to it. It became easier once I learned a few things about the UI, especially how I could use it more like modo, a program that is both complex and joyous to use, again IMHO. ZBrush was a very ugly program at its inception, but it became much slicker and gorgeous, but in the end it has become more complex than the Space Shuttle, which is why Dr. Petter and his wonderfully approachable Sculptris now reside at ZBrush the company. Strata3D, another old-timer that actually looks lovely on the mac and not-so on the PC, has a feature set that went beyond what I expected or thought existed. I could go on, and not just for 3D, but for 2D animation and paint, heck even for audio editing and music production.
So in the end, without a steady influx of users, including new users, software dies and so does the company that produces it. No new users, no growth, no incentive to improve the s/w and make it viable for the users. When I got laid off during the dot-com bust of 2000, Autodesk made ALL of its s/w available for free, for us, the newly displaced, which is something I still am grateful for. Autodesk was being gracious but smart -- the laid off would get new jobs, and why not get them to learn Autocad and 3D Max, etc. BUT, Autodesk doesn't make s/w for the jobless or for hobbyists and tinkerers (like me) -- and neither should Hash. Hence, the need for new users, people who are actually making money using AM, and not just old duffers who "remember when....."
Steam is a great idea, something Shade was looking into, but Shade has been sold and is in a bit of flux right now. Even Silo is now on Steam, but the last time Silo was updated was when I started shaving. I promise you, if AM shows up on Steam, most folks will complain at how difficult it is to use and how ugly it looks. Again, I'm sorry, because it is obvious to me that folks have really tried hard to improve and keep AM current, using what resources are available. But there aren't enough programmers and designers working on AM, and maybe, without new users and that added revenue, there never will be. But, in my humble opinion, and this will surely bring the wrath of God down on me, as long as Martin is involved, AM Marketing will be fruitless and pointless. Better the company be sold, the s/w rewritten from the ground up, and some fresh ideas injected.
I apologize if any of this is offensive and demeaning to anyone, especially for your efforts which I am grateful for. Little venting is all.
Ben
