GKlindt

Very true- mr licensing is not very competitive really for anyone going for a small or larger farm and that's always something that should be considered when looking into a render engine.

XSI user here. Make that X-XSI user as soon as I off load my license.

Just want to say that Avid saved their share holders day just to lose their life in the long run. XSI was the last ray of light for them…oh well…share holders don't care.

So now I'm looking around, and the last powerful app not owned by AD is Houdini. Looks like the community, while small, is good so that's a plus too. Privately owned doesn't mean they'll never sell, but it sweetens the deal for me.

Maybe some studios will turn increasingly inward? Maybe it's time for Pixar and ILM to release their tools for sale?

I really feel sorry for the softimage support team- great group now kicked to the curb- and in this economy!

Yeah…I'm not bitter…

This post isn't even funny.

I'm an XSI causality now left scrambling away from AD.

I think comparing mr with mantra seems odd. I'm not going to pretend I know a lot about mantra, but the best parts about it work very differently than those of mr. Somethings will render faster in mr…and I'm positive anything with motion blur, DOF, displacement, fur will render faster in reyes engines.

I'm not looking to the render engine though of Houdini- I'm looking at the last good procedural work flow option that isn't owned by AD. The complexity of houdini freaks me out a bit- but with that comes quite a bit of power.

Where else can you find that kind of power out of the box?

Just like how XSI users saw a surge in Maya users once AD acquired Alias I'd expect you guys to see a whole lot of XSI users.

I have sincere hopes that SideFX will pick off some of the disgruntled employees in Montreal and move them to Toronto if they see anything they like.