Autodesk acquires Naiad
Aug 14, 2012 by Joel LeLievre
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(Updated) A video showing the capabilities of Naiad 0.6.1, the last version to be released before the software ceases to be developed by Exotic Matter, has been posted. New features shown include a smoke and fire solver. Watch it on Vimeo.
The rumors have indeed been confirmed; Autodesk has acquired Exotic Matter, makers of the Naiad Fluid simulator. Autodesk has released a public announcement , which can be read on the Autodesk website.
The rumors have indeed been confirmed; Autodesk has acquired Exotic Matter, makers of the Naiad Fluid simulator. Autodesk has released a public announcement , which can be read on the Autodesk website.
Another one killed:
“Autodesk will not continue to market and sell Naiad as a standalone product but it is anticipated that certain Naiad technology may find its way into future Autodesk offerings. As of this time, there are no new product or offering announcements pertaining to the Autodesk software portfolio.”
naiad fonctions integrated to max… keep dreaming..
they shoud incorpotrate a thing like pheonix fd, which can do a lot more..in a simple way..
“there are no new product or offering announcements pertaining to the Autodesk software portfolio”
could probably say that in general, never mind Naiad.
Autodesk recently discover the Adobes’ like Suites bankable system. They can sell more separate softwares to customers and win more money. By Naiad acquisition they will create a new “ultimate super reloaded” Suite much more expensive. They would never win more money by integrating Naiad in existing softwares (and I don’t think its possible to integrate). Don’t forget that for 3dsmax they only buy and “integrate” existing plugins…
Incredibly disappointing, not at all surprising.
The most telling line in the press release is “In an effort to accelerate Autodesk’s research and development of simulation technologies for *visual effects*…” I read that as they’ll pillage the code and try to squeak it into Maya at some point soon.
Another fallen soldier to Autodesk. We shall now here of naiad again for a long long time. Somehow it will become more buggy and less stable as Autodesk continues to become a monopoly.
Well something else that’s going to get stifled.
AD had a useful point cloud plug-in in the labs, when it eventualy ran past it’s use by date and I couldn’t use it any more I started to use the one by Alice Labs. AD then bought Alice Labs and it’s been removed, so no 3rd party plug-in and no AD plug-in. What a cock-up.
Similar thing with this, I doubt we’ll ever see the day that Naiad makes it into Max, and if we do it’ll be bundled with loads of stuff we don’t need.
i also see that announcement like another admission of failure.
Their technical skills aren’t good enough to develop this tech, so they buy it.
The only hope is to believe that this tech will, somehow, be infused inside the three major products.
Well, when i see the “Naiad 0.6.1” update, i can understand the take !
The new abilities are too convincing. (why just a fuild sim, when i can have fire and smoke also..)
I like Phoenix FD, and i want that stuff inside my max 🙂 (i know, i’m a dreamer)
I think this is a cool move. The fact that they are not selling it as a stand along application seems to me to imply that it will be either included with or integrated into their other products. Perhaps this is part of why the ECS stuff was done… It would be nice to be getting this with Max.
As for Autodesk killing apps…what have they killed? Most of the plugins they acquired they integrated…and IMO, one of their problems is NOT killing apps. Right now they are actively developing and selling the 3 top 3d apps…I would love to see them kill two of them and force us all on one, where they focus all their development. It would suck at first if they didnt pick our app, but in the long run we would all end up better off I think.
For as much as I am not always a fan of how Autodesk decides their marketing and product policy, and apart from mega-corporate crap, I actually do think they are trying to do good for us. This is very high end fluid tech, anyone in fluids should know the name Bridson. This is a good bit of tech to have for the one holding the 3 top apps.
@charley: Products killed by Autodesk over time or by acquiring: Combustion, Toxik (well, Composite is just a shadow of the vision), Paint/Effect/Edit, RealViz stuff, Alice Labs Studio Clouds,…
Feel free to add more 🙂
Actually, Paint / Effect were bundled together and renamed Combustion. Combustion went on to 4 realeses over quite a few years when it really stated showing its age (msotly as we moved into the HD world) and rather than continue development on it, they began an entirely new product that would fill the gap and then some called Toxic. Which was not killed, it has been renamed Composite and comes with any version of 3ds max or Maya and is still being developed. But even though it is sort of free, I know of no companies actually using it in production…there are probably some, but I dont know them. Some of the Realviz stuff is also included in any version of Max or Maya, but I am not sure about development on that. But I know of only one person that uses any of that stuff, even now that it is free. And the Alice Labs stuff may very well currently be in some form of development. Autodesk Labs showcased a point cloud rnd tool a couple years back and there is no way of knowing what they may be using that for right now…to soon to tell.
My point is that in Autodesks history there have been far less ‘killings’ than most would have us think. In fact all the way back to the Revit acquisition over 10 years ago, Autodesk has shown an unwillingness to focus development and instead co-develop what seems to be competing products in house.
That, to me, is a larger issue.
Hi Charley,
you are right, and i am sure AD does not intentionally “kills” the products. They die simply because they are not enough advertised or not directly placed in the market. 3D Portals are full with colorful, fancy, even kitschy Modo and C4D Adverts and Banners. I can imagine young people get more inspired with it then with the investment-management-looking Autodesk 3dsmax Site (the most cold and empty design in the whole solar system). If i would start with 3d now, i would definitely take some of the other tools, alone because of the young, fresh look and dynamic presentations.
Back to killing: I have purchased 3dsMax 1 some 10-15 years ago.
My 3dsMax (1 and 2), from Kinetx, came as bundle with:
– Hypermatter
– RadioRay
– Lightscape (Does anyone remember this one?) :))
(some $2500,- back in the days).
I think they were all a year later “killed”, and AD did not even existed in that time 🙂
Ahh Lightscape… I used that once…just once 😛 Actually I tried to use it on an arch viz interior one time… it was too slow 🙁 The company where I worked purchased a couple seats of it.
Actually it got included into 3ds max around version 5 or so. I believe that is where the Subdivide modifier came from. You used to be able to create multi-detail tessellation using lights and the radiosity engine (i believe that was what Lightscape became). I know there was a trick to capturing the mesh though as it was designed to generate for render olny… Part of Lightscape worked off vertex coloring for lighting, so it had a cool tessellation feature where it broke up the mesh detail by the light/shadow transitions… It was pretty cool back in the day.
Autodesk actually has a pretty good history of using the technology it buys. I am still pretty hopeful for the whole Naiad thing.