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Happy Holidays! Iray, People Power, XBR, and Community Survey
Posted by Ken Pimentel, 22 December 2010 7:00 pm
Happy Holidays!
My last blog of the year, so I wanted to wish you all a great new year. I also wanted to bring you up to date on various topics as we turn the page on a busy year.
Community Voice Survey
We’ve had 1,500 people fill in the survey (thanks everyone) and we can now move to process some of the results. I don’t have time to break down all the data and present the conclusions, but I will summarize them.
Who responded:
A whopping 74% have more than 5 years experience with the product and 55% use it full-time. Only 4% of the respondents put down student, teacher or hobbyist, so I think we can assume the population involves those who depend on the product and know what they are talking about. 54% are using 3ds Max 2011 and 27% are using 3ds Max 2010, so the results are relative to our latest releases.
Overall, rate your experience of using 3ds Max and/or 3ds Max Design based on the version you're spending the most time with
The first chart shows that the top two issues are the viewport experience and the UI. I’d also note that just about as many of you think the viewport sucks as those who think it is above average. For the UI, almost twice as many of you think it is above average as below average – I bet that would surprise a lot of people. I think the clearest thing from this is that our viewports should get a lot of attention in the future and the UI needs some love too.
Assume you have of Autodesk R&D dollars to spend. Where would you spend it?
This question asks people to prioritize broadly certain things that we could do with our R&D dollars. People had a lot of choices to invest in. As you can see, we’re being told that the focus should be on bug fixing, workflow improvements and viewports by a large margin over anything else. People wanted to spend a full 52% of our R&D effort on these areas rather than new features or capabilities. What is surprising is that when we asked people about their experience of workflow in general, 51% said it was above average already. The same can be said about stability, only 20% felt it was below average, yet people obviously still want more of it. The fact that viewports shows up in both questions as a priority sends a very unambiguous message: improve it!
Details
The next series of questions asked people where they more specifically wanted things fixed or effort invested to improve on the above categories. So, for those that wanted more effort focused on bug fixing, we simply asked them to tell us where in the product that effort should be focused.
The next series of questions asked people where they more specifically wanted things fixed or effort invested to improve on the above categories. So, for those that wanted more effort focused on bug fixing, we simply asked them to tell us where in the product that effort should be focused.
Top 3 stability issues to fund:
- Polygon modeling
- Viewport previews
- UV Tools
Top 3 workflow issues to fund:
- Polygon modeling
- UV tools
- Viewport previews
Top 3 interop issues to fund:
- After Effects
- Photoshop
- Maya
Top 3 areas to improve viewport performance:
- Polygon modeling
- Viewport previews
- Pflow
One new feature that would make a difference:
Over 800 ideas/comments were submitted. It is amazing how many different ideas are represented. There are literally 500 different ideas that “would make a difference”. Yes, some were common like ICE, Python, UI, Viewports, Fluids, UV tools, Stability, Modelling, etc. Basically, more detail around a lot of the feedback that the survey already reflected. I can’t say that any one thing or even category stood out, there were equal numbers of ideas submitted for General, Animation, Effects and Modelling followed by Rendering.
Where do we go from here?
We have gathered a lot of information that can drive our process and enough people responded that we can use it with confidence when we have to prioritize what we do. We have also been experimenting with a new method of giving customers a voice. Think of it as a wishlist that users can vote on the various ideas posted. We’re testing out this idea to understand how it would work in our process and how to manage it and give feedback. So far, we’re very pleased with the results but we want to give it time to make sure we understand the implications of this and the reaction of users involved in it. Our hope is that we can unveil this so that customers have a single point of entry for capturing their ideas and we can see how the community votes on these ideas to give us a better perspective as to what is viewed as important. For those that want to look at the survey answers themselves, here is a report.
3ds Max Success
It’s been another great year for 3ds Max/Design. We’ve seen both 3ds Max and 3ds Max show almost a 30% increase in new commercial seats over last year. That is a dramatic increase when the industries we play in are probably growing by no more than 10-15%. Again, 3ds Max sits on top of the charts for revenue and seats – keeping our number 1 tool of choice badge of honor. Did you see that 3ds Max 2011 was also nominated for “best art tool” by Game Developer Magazine community? We won it last year, so we have some hope we’ll pick it up again. As we wind down our celebrations of the 20th anniversary of 3ds Max , we certainly have a lot to celebrate this year and a lot to look forward to.
XBR (Project Excalibur: the restructuring of 3ds Max)
Is alive and well and is keeping us very busy. We know some of you are struggling with some of the renovations that are “in progress”. We have put together a plan for a series of webinars in February to bring everyone up to date with what is going on and what we’ve achieved and where were headed. A big focus of the event will be a presentation of the future of our UI as we’ve now had time to think through the details of what we want to accomplish and set a vision for where everything is headed. I hope you’ll be able to join us for these events. We’ll post details on how to sign-up in early January.
People Power
Here’s a more complete video of the research we’re doing. There is still a lot of hard work and coding required to get to our next step, but everything is progressing well enough. We still are looking at trying to get this onto Autodesk Labs in mid-2011 so that you can all download it and start playing with it and giving us feedback. I hope to show some significant progress in our path flow and turning ability in the Feb timeframe. This is critical to allow more flexibility in dealing with quick changes in how people move or react to the need for a sudden change.
Viewport research
Here’s another video of some research we’ve got going. You’ll see some viewport effects (NPR), but more importantly, you’ll see a 15M polygon scene of San Francisco (thanks SOM) with 5,000 objects in the viewport running on a Nvidia FX3800 with very good performance. There’s a lot of magic going on to make this possible. We’re seeing roughly a 10X improvement in performance when your scene has lots of objects in it. If you only have 1 object, then the performance improvements aren’t as much.
Tractor Media iray video
Finally, I want to close with a video recently produced by Tractor Media using iray. They just got started with iray and already they've done a marvelous job of creating a holiday video that is sure to be a classic. See you all in the new year!
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26 Comments
sparwassercom
Posted 23 December 2010 9:22 pm
Max = Pinky
Maya (the original programmers) = Brain
sparwassercom
Posted 23 December 2010 9:39 pm
I don´t understand their strategy goals, but since they bought all of the 3d mayor packages they did a good job.
So for me I like to wish all of the Autodesk employees a very nice Xmas and a happy new year!!!
best rog!
www.sparwasser.com
3DMadness
Posted 23 December 2010 10:19 pm
Also great to hear about the survey. BTW, is there a place to find some 3ds max oficial numbers like seats against the other softwares?
Glacierise
Posted 23 December 2010 10:38 pm
giftbaby
Posted 24 December 2010 2:21 am
Greeting my dear
I'm gift Koneh
anyway i came across your profile on
www.the-area.com and i love it so much.Here is my
email address (gift_1000@yahoo.in)
you can email me with the above id then
i will send you my picture and also tell
you more about my self
hope to hear from you soon
have a nice day
thanks
YiannisK
Posted 24 December 2010 9:45 am
loran
Posted 24 December 2010 10:57 am
NPR in the viewport is cool, but...what for??
Iray greating card...Iray? really? I am not sure this is a good commercial for Iray. This could have been done with scanline. Shaders are awfull, reflections seems to be tricky. Everything but realism down here.
haifenghu
Posted 24 December 2010 11:26 am
祝你们节日快乐！
KhalidJB
Posted 25 December 2010 5:41 pm
mahi
Posted 25 December 2010 7:44 pm
Wobi
Posted 27 December 2010 10:20 am
danpool
Posted 27 December 2010 3:42 pm
mahi
Posted 27 December 2010 9:02 pm
Give me interactive mental ray first!
mortas may
Posted 27 December 2010 9:37 pm
sparwassercom
Posted 27 December 2010 10:45 pm
best regards
r.sp.
www.sparwasser.com
Wobi
Posted 28 December 2010 8:42 am
That is on my wishlist, too.
@mahi:
Iray is a rendering mode of mental ray
http://www.m4d.info/index.php
mahi
Posted 28 December 2010 2:14 pm
I can't way to see what's in store for us either way. But what would be great for my work flow is an option for the standard mental ray render to have an interactive preview just like Vray has with Vray RT.
mahi
Posted 31 December 2010 3:50 pm
Erik López
Posted 4 January 2011 8:02 am
Macha
Posted 13 January 2011 3:30 pm
Everyone say's that UI of api they are using is the best
Just let them do this instead posting comments like that.
As for how will it look in the end, will know once i see it, so i'm not making up my mind till that
k4noe
Posted 18 February 2011 6:55 pm
I also want to add some about material browser, its too damn annoying and took too long to remember or to grab to. I want old interface just red , green, or blue icon is enough for me, no need candy bar which is take my teeth away.
k4noe
Posted 18 February 2011 10:18 pm
Adding features is the easiest to do in the world of software. There is no need for physical changes plus they are quick and easy to accomplish. Thus, most software products suffer from this disease.
====What causes feature creep?====
Most software suffering from feature creep are technologically rich solutions which arise from user and business people requests, as well as from marketing research. Engineers add features because they want to create a technologically better product. Because they are the ones controling the development process, we get a technologically advanced software which fullfils the business requirements, but is very difficult to use. On the other hand, business people want a product filled with features believing that would make it more competitive and wanted on the market. However, it must meet client requirements as well. Everything is about quantity with them: requirements, time and resources.
By asking the wrong questions like "Wouldn't it be cool to add this feature?", development teams add functionalities which are unnecessary for basic software purpose, the one that supports users' primary activities. As we know, intermediate users use only a part of software functionality, so a large part of the added features is not going to be used at all. Even when the team agrees to focus on core functionalities only, no one is quite sure what these are. There are only assumptions and guesses which easily lead to feature creep.
====Users and their goals====
Features are important - they present a picture of software capabilities and value. However, there is something more important which is usually left out - people. People who use the software. Without users in mind, without knowing why they do something, you only ask what are we building and how. The why is left out. Nobody is wandering if there is a need to build something. The users have goals and needs different from those whose create or sell software.
When user goals are not recognized, the only thing that we can focus on is individual activities and tasks. Tasks and activities, however, are only steps a user takes in order to achieve their goals. A task is uploading a CV, an activity would be applying for a job, but the goal is to get a good job. Since goals are what motivates people their tasks and activities will serve in achieving their goals; and as tasks and activities map onto features, it is clear they too are serving this purpose. If we don't know what the goals are, there is no limit to adding new functionality. This is where the true nature of featuritis lies.
====Missing design process====
A successful product requires not only good technology platform and satisfaction of business needs but also an adequate design process, which is usually missing. Instead of non-designers asking questions about cool features and making decisions based on that professional designers should, as an integral part of the team, seek answers to who the users are, how do they act, which activities they wish to perform and how the software should behave in order to meet their requirements.
Answers to these questions are available through various research methods, which should come before the development process begins. Research results should be modeled into Personas - presenting the central point for design process. Personas will always remind us of who we are designing (and developing) the software for and keep features under control.
Furthermore, various ideas will be researched and validated, iteratively, through people testing thus allowing us to create software accommodated to users rather than forcing them to accommodate to a software product filled with fancy features. So, an iterative, user-centric design keeps the users in focus throughout the design process and enables us to meet users' needs and goals. Thus keeping non-important features out of scope.
====Good and bad (and very ugly) example====
Take Dropbox for example - Dropbox does one thing and it's doing it well - it synchronizes your offline data with their online copy. No fancy features here. Dropbox is focused on what the users need. By answering the question "Why is Dropbox popular and not something similar, like Windows Live Sync, which is free?", Michael Wolfe explains in a short and effective way what's standing behind Dropbox success.
To much regret, it is far easier and cheaper to build a feature-rich software than to satisfy the needs and goals of users. We know this due to a large number of bad examples. I once came across an article (can't remember which or where, if anyone knows, please share) explaining how the problem of featuritis was solved by adding a feature which let's you choose a mode: beginner or expert. Another feature to cure featuritis! Unfortunately, this is how many software products look like today - difficult to maintain metastasized mutants, which scare the users.
SuperCoon
Posted 18 February 2011 10:33 pm
Ken Pimentel
Posted 19 February 2011 1:12 am
I hope you all think it is good news that we're adopting the Agile process. I think this might help us get more refinement out of workflows that we introduce.
strob
Posted 9 June 2011 1:46 pm
Ken Pimentel
Posted 10 June 2011 7:19 am
Estimated arrival in late July to Autodesk Labs. Team is scrambling to get it ready for you. It will have many missing parts. No crowd generator, flat-planes only (no stairs/steps), limited control over appearance, single male and single female, no ability to select a single character and "direct" them to do something else. You will be able to paint "flows" and establish "states". You'll have some control over apperance - plus whatever max gives you anyway. Just Phase I of several.
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