Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 5, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Although the temperatures in the SIGGRAPH exhibition halls in sultry New Orleans were cooled down, some visitors suffered a burst of heat from anger. The reason lies in Autodesk’s release policy. The software giant has indeed presented updated products that sound promising. However, one product has also disappeared from the range: Toxik.
The compositing tool has been integrated into Maya 2010 and has died as a standalone product. When asked, the terse reply was: “No, Toxik is no longer available as a standalone product.” And the users? Does anyone in this company ask about the users?
For years, Autodesk pushed the product into the market and worked to persuade people. Once it had been accepted by the market, it was simply removed from it. That is not far-sighted product policy, and it does not strengthen trust. Combustion has been on ice for years, and I remember Edit or Matchmover, which suffered a fate similar to Toxik. Thus SIGGRAPH became the funeral mass for Toxik.
Matthias J. Lange, DP Editor-in-Chief
