Midphase
SIgor420
I just want to say that artists should stop being spoiled and stop pressuring these companies, especially private ones.
I hope you're joking...right? First of all, these "artists" that you're referring to are customers, some of us paying thousands of dollars each year for the "privilege" of using Houdini. Secondly, there are a lot of things about Houdini that still need work and improvement and I don't see anything "spoiled" about asking for updates at semi-regular intervals. Thirdly the reason why Maxon's development is so slow has nothing to do with it being publicly owned, it's got to do with poor management and lack of ideas -- there are plenty of examples of publicly owned companies who have great update releases with innovative ideas. And finally, the rest of the world is moving on with some pretty massive updates in case you haven't noticed lately, so for Houdini to remain competitive in a rapidly changing industry, it has to continue to evolve just as rapidly.
There is nothing spoiled about customers inquiring as to what the status of the next update is, and SideFX is about overdue for an announcement. Hopefully, this thread puts a wee bit of pressure on them to speak up.
No, I am not joking, you already have more than any other 3D app has. Of course, no 3D app is perfect and always lacking something. Putting pressure on SideFX is basically putting pressure on people who develop, test etc.. not really on the management. In the end, management pushes others to do things which makes everyone miserable because you need that feature now and cannot wait a bit longer. So when you pressure them you are producing lower quality software and these complex features need time to be completed, tested etc. So if you want buggy releases, feel free to pressure them and in the end, no one is winning.
Also, you are very wrong about Maxon. You are right about management, but those shareholders are the ones who demand more revenue per year, thus more pressure on development and management == poor quality because the goal is more releases per year and so on. And if you ever worked in a development environment, you would know how complex things can be. And no, Maxon is not out of ideas, not at all. Usually, development is planned few years in front and the roadmap is known. Of course, things can change but some things you simply cannot control. You devs get sick, or anyone else, and things can be slow down. Even if you have a new developer that doesn't mean he can jump immediately and start coding things, he will need at least a few months to be productive and so on. So, no need to pressure, I am sure SideFX is doing everything they can to finish the next release as soon as possible because in the end they are not stupid and they are very aware of pleasing the customers is a must due to $$. But anyway, I guess everyone have different point of view...so I say, tak etime SideFX and bring us solid release and not a buggy one.