Autodesk joins the the Open Design Alliance (ODA)
Sep 24, 2020 by CGPress Staff
16
|
Autodesk has joined the Open Design Alliance, a nonprofit consortium that’s dedicated to providing support and access to open design file formats.
According to the announcement, the decision to join the ODA was in response to recent criticisms of Autodesk from architecture customers: “One of the areas highlighted was progress with our products on international data exchange standards, specifically the need to better support IFC, an open file format increasingly used by our AEC customers. With Autodesk’s membership in the ODA, we will accelerate our progress toward supporting this need.”
Read the announcement in full on Autodesk’s website.
As soon as they start using IFC as standard format for revit instead of using rvt, and as soon as they open DWG, I’ll believe their commitment with Open Standards, otherwise, nothing really changed, this is a corporation pose.
OMG man… YOU! always and everyday!
You behave like a divorced man that still everyday, years after years, complaining about the ex-wife…
Your new girlfriend never is enough for you?? (Blender)
Who mentioned Blender?… wait a second… you!
This is about Autodesk joining the “Open Design Alliance”, it’s a fake corporation pose unless they truly support it as I said.
What? I use Blender and now I cannot speak out loud about Autodesk? you wish, LOL
But that in some areas they keep using proprietary formats, doesnt mean they dont go more opensource in general. they add quite a lot of resources embracing materialX (where they are contributing a lot on code), USD, OSL, VDB on the horizon, OCIO, etc… Compared with 2 years ago, I think its quite clear Autodesk move in to open standards quite a lot.
I think its clear you are influenced by autodesk very easily and are a corporate shill for them. what do you get paid by them to support fake ‘open software’ initiatives that are nothing but a markleting excercise
I think the same….how much?
The thing is not that they support, after many years of not doing it, open file formats, when they are forced to, because not supporting USD, OSL or VDB as of today it’s absurd (BTW so far there is no support to GLTF in their software, the FBX “adversary”), the thing is that they enter now here after an open letter of some of the big players in the field.
They key thing is not that they support sided file formats, the key thing is that they keep their main file formats fully closed, why don’t they convert DWG to an open file format? That would be truly supporting open file formats, the same with FBX and the same with Revit, why don’t they turn those file formats into fully free open source/specifications file formats?
Using open file formats has been there since always, giving a bit of funding and using some marketing is nothing, they have the power to truly support them as I said, and they don’t want to do that, so I still think this is a corporate pose to try to convince those big studios that they want to play fair. I already said in the past that big studios owners are not dumb, and this won’t convince them either, or Autodesk really change directions (rentals, customer care, respect to old customers, truly supporting open standards) or the mammoth has already began to move, if they wait too long, the mammoth moves slowly but when it fully embraces cruise speed there is no way to stop it.
Half agree, half not.
Gltf I dont understand the critic here. You have Gltf in Blender as addon, in the same way you can install a free plugin in 3dsmax to have import/export gltf capabilities. Why autodesk should spend resources in doing what it is already available for free?
I will not call the actual movement from autodesk in to Open standards a “pose”. You can integrate open standards, and you can integrate them. (XD).
Blender has OSL support. Basically its a reader for osl and they call it “done”. Autodesk could do the same, and I am pretty sure not much people will complain about that, because not many people asked for OSL in max.
However they decided internally they needed to move away from the old legacy 3dsmax maps and decided to full embrace OSL as a total alternative to the actual maps. This was not adding a “reader for OSL”, but a multiple year transition (still going on), with full legacy maps conversions to equivalent OSLs, OSL version tracking history, dynamic QT interfaces, HLSL realtime viewport conversions, and so on. 3dsmax has actually the biggest ecosystem created around OSL from any other 3dapp by far, and for me this is not a “pose” to say they have an open standard half implemented and call it done.
Dwg, fbx, here I agree totally with you, We all know this give them a certain advantage to keep clients, and will be difficult to let it go.
The OSL integration is for max, or for Arnold? because AFAIK OSL in in Max because of Arnold, it’s not an agnostic integration that can be interpreted by any render engine, of course such a thing would be a non-sense because OSL is a JIT shader so the render engine itself has to interpret it.
In Blender OSL works, as long as you don’t want to use it with GPU, which is the most difficult part (something I think Arnold is able to use, althought not fully I think)
The good thing is that you can mix OSL with native Cycles nodes, which are faster, and you can recreate a big amount of what you do in OSL with native Cycles nodes, which are faster, so there is not a big need of OSL in Blender, however, for CPU is supported.
The “bad” part of OSL is that it’s very nature of JIT shader makes it slower, no matter what, so having everything as an OSL shader is not a good alternative, however I don’t have a problem with that, the problem with Autodesk is not that they use an open standard that everyone uses, of course they would, the different 3d industries need it and ask for it, it’s not like they are “giving” anything, they are “receiving” something, which is totally different, even if they “invest” in those formats.
They could have embraced the disney open shading standards, like the Principled Shader or the newest one, but instead of that they decided to create the “Autodesk Standard Surface” which is basically a Principled Shader with the “Autodesk” word on it… great.
https://autodesk.github.io/standard-surface/images/diagram_model.svg
The problem with Autodesk is that they embrace fully closed file formats, and they want them to tie the user, not because there are “real” advantages over creating an open file format, like Revit, they could create an open specification for revit, and expand it with specific things of Revit, but keep it compatible with IFC, but no, they decided to go fully closed and their support of IFC is a joke. Theoretically it will improve now, but why now after the open letter and not before when revit has been with us since ages and IFC has been a standard since a lot of time?
But the worse part is that even formats that don’t have a single reason to be closed, like DWG or FBX, are fully closed and behind a license wall with some of the EULA “kindness” of Autodesk, making super hard for any software to read/write DWG or FBX without accepting their conditions.
They want to embrace open formats? easy, make FBX and DWG open formats, I doubt they will TBH, any other case would be a corporation pose made for aesthetics or because they know they will receive much more than what they give, like in 99% – 1%, or they wouldn’t move a finger for it.
P.S.: regarding GLTF, before max had Alembic support there were plugins for it, why would they need to support ABC if there where plugins? But they did it…
OSL works with VRay, not sure about other 3rd party render engines. I haven’t noticed a speed hit except for certain setups. For instance, using a RG bitmap converted to UV coordinates to control tiling flow and direction (for stitching, zippers, roads, etc) works fine if only used for one channel; lets say diffuse. But as soon as you want it to control reflection, normal, and other slots with that same UV conversion it comes to a crawl. But with math nodes, and other map nodes, I really haven’t noticed something so bad as to go and time it.
You may choose not to believe it, but honestly, we are working heavily on Open Standards. For example, we are adding a lot of tech to MaterialX. I’m personally involved in both MaterialX, and I’m attending the OSL Technical Steering Committee meetings religiously.
And no, OSL in max has very little (if anything) to do with Arnold. It’s for all renderers in max, not just Arnold. The 3ds Max Physical Material (the precursor to Autodesk Standard Surface) works the same in the viewport, in Arnold, in vRay, in Corona…. and OSL maps wosks the same in the viewport, in Arnold, in vRay, in Corona….
Yes, Autodesk Standard Surface, that was built upon the 3ds Max Physical Material, was indeed inspired by Disney Principled, but also inspired by many other things. We removed redundant parameters and added missing things that we needed (at least back then, the Principled shader didn’t even do transparency, let along SSS or coating).
Finally, about file formats: I can’t speak to DWG, coz I know nothing about it, but the max file format is 100% defined by the plugins. Each plugin decides how to “save itself” to the max file, so making an open description of the “max file format” is actually impossible. Nobody knows the “max file format” completely, without having the source to every single plugin that is using it. It’s extensible, adaptable, and 100% flexible. Making it “open” won’t help you interpret 3rd party plugin data….
And yes, we strongly believe in supporting open standards. You may chose not to believe me – but it’s the truth.
/Z
I understand your position, however I don’t think your reasoning makes sense.
First I never mentioned max file format, I mentioned Revit which is a way more modern format that could have been created with IFC in mind, or even could have been avoided by using and expanding IFC as many many other softwares out there, there is no need for a proprietary format at all.
And even if there is a sudden need, that revit format could be open, but the decision of Autodesk is to maintain it closed and incompatible with anything that is not an Autodesk software, we could argue that it cannot be compatible with A or B, but suddenly it is compatible with max, so it’s clear that it can be made compatible with anything if there is a true will of supporting open file formats.
Second, regarding the max file, what you say makes no sense, if the max format would be open and have an open standard and open specification, no matter what plugin developers do because they can provide the needed information if they want to deliver compatibility, in any other situation the parts regarding that plugin may be broken, but at the very least you could be able to extract the most basic layers like geometry with the most basic modifiers, and it will be users’s responsibility to collapse or remove the plugin information to deliver a fully open max file for interoperability, or the importer one to ignore or fail in the import phase.
No body needs to know the max file format completely with plugins, what we need is an open specification to be able to read the parts we may want or need, and third party developers will do their thing extending it if needed.
Will you also justify that max 2018 cannot open max 2020 files? Backwards compatibility is something possible, even when part of the scene may be broken because of missing parts, modifiers or tools, but no, Autodesk decides to make those files fully incompatible between versions, so even inside Max the own max file format is closed between versions, so I don’t see that “commitment” with open file formats, what I see is a pose, and where it can do something really open, it does not do anything.
Opening the max file format is possible, it can be done, and I assume you just say this because your are inside Autodesk, if you were in a different position your discourse would be very different for sure.
Regarding the DWG and the FBX, because you mention that you have no idea about DWG, but you avoid mentioning FBX, can you reason why FBX is not made open instead having it under a EULA wall that forces you to accept Autodesk conditions?
The commitment of Autodesk with open source is a joke, the Autodesk Material may be useful or not, but I see very difficult that others adopt it just because it belongs to Autodesk, others will adopt Material X an communicate with Autodesk Material using Material X, which is truly open, you may have fixed things or not, but that’s a small thing when you really look at Autodesk and how it maintains a TON of closed file formats just to force users to use their software even when they don’t want to.
You may yell all that you want that Autodesk believes in open standards, but until the behaviour of the company regarding the truly problematic file formats does not change, that would be a lie, you may not be lying, because you personally fully think that’s true, but many others like you said before that Autodesk had a big commitment with their customers, bug or small, with supporting perpetual license owners, and it’s commitment with no implementing Rental only and maintaining a perpetual option alongside the rentals, and I can go on and on.
So I’m sorry but even when you think you are not lying, what you say it’s a lie, because you have no voice or vote in what Autodesk really decides or believes in, and they can change their mind in no time, they don’t care about what they said before, they reach a goal and then they go to the next one, and if they have to sell out all of their users, they will do so, this is your bosses decision and you are just a person more inside the big mammoth Autodesk is that will accept and defend what they say or go out of it.
Am I wrong?
Then demonstrate it, achieve that FBX, DWG and Revit become Open File Formats with open specification, not because I say so, but because you
I don’t have to believe or not believe you, I just have to watch Autodesk’s actions.
Juand3D, please calm down a bit. Zap Andersson is a great developer who has pushed the OSL format to a point that few other software currently has. If you care about open source that at least deserves recognition.
In regards to the other file formats, I agree with you. Open-source is something that is slowly taking over the industry and commercial companies are probably never going to be as quick to adept to this as you or I might like.
However you’re aggressive tone is uncalled for in this situation. It undermines your message and it only enforces opposition. The Autodesk that you hate so much is not here, nor does it care what you write. Other visitors of this site however have (most of the time) honest intentions and are respectful. Try be one of them please.
I’m calmed DavidZ.
I have no aggressive tone, I’m sorry if you read it and understood it in that way, but let me clarify that I’m not being aggressive at all, however I’m being quite clear 🙂
I know Zap since ages, I know who am I talking to, and I respect him a lot, that does not mean that he is inside the corporation and I disagree with what he said 🙂
Regarding OSL, I said nothing about it in this last post, but OSL is something that has to be supported, and as I said, that’s something that benefits Autodesk, not something that benefits the 3d industry/community in general, so no doubt the OSL support was going to come to max, in the same way as Alembic and OpenVDB, I’m not criticising Autodesk for implementing open file formats on their software, they are very welcome to do so, and their users will be happy because of that, I was one of the stubborn people that asked in the beta for Alembic way before it was present in max, and it was not a priority at that moment, but it was finally implemented.
Regarding the Autodesk I hate, I don’t hate the company, I dislike it’s behaviour, and I put in doubt what Zap is saying because several reasons:
– There is no reason other than a business call to not open the .max as an open file format, that’s their call to do, I mention .max because Zap mentioned it, and his reasoning makes no sense at all, and I’m sure he knows it, they just have to do an specification of the format that max supports as a native format, no need for give additional specification for plugins, that’s a matter of the plugins developers IF they want to.
– Zap works inside Autodesk so if he speaks he won’t speak against it’s own company, specially being a big corporation.
Once again, I want to clarify, I’m not being aggressive, and I’m sorry if it sounded that way, that was not my intention, but if I write long posts and explain things so much is because I don´t want to answer:
“What you say are lies and you know nothing because you are an employee and many like you said many things in the past that were lies even when they did not know that at the time they said it”
I could have answered that, however I find that disrespectful, because while it sums up some of the things I said, I think without a proper explanation it’s just like insulting Zap, something that I don’t want to do, and yes, I said that what he said was a lie, but I also explained that it was not because he was lying on purpose, but because similar past situations demonstrated that, and we all know those situations.
I hope this clarifies that I’m trying to be clear, not aggressive at all.
I respect Zap, however I cannot trust Autodesk nor his theoretical commitment to something that they themselves fight against day after day with their “lock-up the customer” policy.
P.S.: a side note about this:
I don’t write for Autodesk, if they care or not it’s their business, however I answer people that talks with me, nothing more nothing less, and in this case it happens to be one of the top notch Autodesk developers 🙂
Progress in the right direction.
jajajajaja Autodesk go down