its been over 2 months now UPDATE the EI 9 Progress please

[RichardJoly]

You are right Phungus, the waiting is unbearably long but, again, thanks for your patience and even if this is all we say and repeat over and over ad nauseam, the team is REALLY doing its best to get the thing out. I really don't know where Tom finds the time and energy to work this out and I respect his effort greatly. Please bear with us a little longer.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Rich!

Thanks my friend, the answer is simple, I really love what Im doing.

Thanks

Tom

[Frankg]

Hi Tomas,

obviously you're addicted to EIAS:)

I'm not in a hurry. Making things good costs a lot of time.

Thank you for all your work and patience.

Regards

Frankg

[Phungus]

You are right Phungus, the waiting is unbearably long but, again, thanks for your patience and even if this is all we say and repeat over and over ad nauseam, the team is REALLY doing its best to get the thing out.

I have the luxury as a user/customer/consumer of only seeing my side of it. And I´m not as entrenched with EIAS as I get the feeling many others here are.

The problem is that the longer time that passes, the more my expectations grow, it´s like a vicious circle. And during this time I have also purchased other apps/upgrades that raises the bar.

In addition the one thing that could keep my (and possibly others?) expectations on a reasonable level would be feedback from the developers/company....but they have a "keep our cards close to the chest and mouth shut" policy. So I am afraid that when the day comes it will feel like a deflated ballon....but if that stems from unreasonable expectations, or simply a disappointing feature list remains to be seen.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Phungus,

I understand your point and I hope you will like what we did, its our first step, EIAS was needing lots of care.

Thanks

Tom

[MickaelBehn]

Hi Rich, Phungus and Tomas,

I am an old EIAS user. I have been through all the phases of EIAS life from 2.7.2 broadcast and film versions to the Play Universe buyout to the repurchase, I have 17GB of EIAS only apps and sockets and plugins and tutorial on my HD, stuff that i have gathered since i started to us EIAS out of fear it would never make it to the next release. I spent hundreds of hours over the years gathering a historical software library of EI. I have stuck with EIAS and always will. I am your lifelong member. why ? because i was trained and got my 3D animation degree with EIAS.

I moved out of the 3D field in 2000 into the TV broadcast world and now really work in the TV Broadcast. I should have moved on to MAYA or Softimage ( i originally trained on DEC alpha system with SI before EIAS) years ago but i never had the same love for them as i did for EIAS. So in the end i dont earn a living with EIAS but i will always be faithful to my first love. I am excited about the new EIAS 9 and i am being impatient but not because im in a hurry but rather because I am really seeing Tomas taking care of us like no one else has ever done before. I know this will be the best release EIAS has ever had. It might not have all the features of others, but it will be the best release in 15 years and that alone will make it worth it.

if none of us cared i don't think we would even be having this chat here.

Mickael

[RichardJoly]

Comfy words. In great need for the developers...

Thank you Mickael.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Mickael!

EIAS made me an artist and a film maker, made lots of my dreams real, imagine the passion I have for it, isn‘t the time to shape new artists and let them dream too? :)

Thanks

Tom

[fantomaz]

I am with Mickael in every point exept, that i use EI from version 1.0 till today.

My living is also sometimes EI addicted, sometimes not. It depends on

customers need - of course.

But over all these years, i was safe to know, that EI will do the job. Nevertheless

if it was easy to do or not, if you have the resources (plugins and so on) or

not, if you have the knowhow or not. Because: one of the biggest pro with EI was always

the community of friendly users and the willing to share their wisdom to each other.

Now we are in a situation, that a serious animator and some very talented

programmers are the owners of a dinosaur piece of software and they

act like it is a pleasure to work for peoples/users/animators need - like us.

In every aspect i am aware of it.

My guess is: we have a bright future coming our way of animating/visualizing

and working with EI.

I know, i will see old friends and make new ones here with coming versions of EI :shy:

Alex

[Mark Johnston]

Hi Tom

Thanks for the work you and the team are doing , Luv EIAS want to see it keep going and keep growing . It has been along wait, but I for one am grateful to you for putting the work into this great software, that it deserves.

SOoooooo Thanks Thanks and Thanks ahead of release.

Mark

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Mark!

Thanks! We are going to start the last cycle of bug fixes if any surprise comes..

Tom

[Igors]

Hello gentlemen

We saw how Tom repulsed your persistent attacks ;), now we've a minute to say few words

1) ETA is always a problem. We see no one lucky example. Remember EIM (Tesla) promised im March 2007, but where is it? Ok, so why EI9 is so long? There are 2 reasons why

a) Every development plan is approximate at start, there are always things to solve on road, it's normal/unavoidable. A perfect/ideal/academic plan would never work in practice. Foe example: Rama bugs in EI8. Yes, it took several months and increased our timeline a lot. But what to do? Do not fix it? User will be unhappy (btw: same user who asked about fastest release). Same with GI, Camera Maps and many other - after learning prob in all details there is much more work than expected. We guess same in your art projects.

b ) Second reason is just one word "re-architecturing". Many things in EIAS was designed really cool, and even now, many years later, we see no better solutions. Same time a lot is obsolete and should be re-designed, It's a normal process of evolution for any software. Yes, architecture changes do not produce immediate result always but they are necessary, otherwise we've no room for concrete final features for user. This aspect was ignored in prev EI versions and with EI9 we've got an effect of "awaken dog"

Well, it's our first release, we guess from now things would go easier and faster ;)

2) A promised full features list and (especially) public beta = a very risked venture (said softly). Or, in simple words it can kill product. We've learned effect of public beta - and for us it was totally counter-productive. User's appetite has no limits It's normal, but a great minus of public beta is: user momentary forgets about done things (really, they are already in his pocket, because promised). Instead his attention is concentrated on things he would like to see. Typically these ideas are quite rational but.. they should be matured, analyzed and implemented in next round of development.

So we think only base/flag features (like MP/64 in EI9) should be announced before. Any release should be a holiday/surprise. :)

That's all, thx for your understanding

[RichardJoly]

Igors, Tom and all, nothing to do with my costume but what an INCREDIBLE job you did!

I'm sure everyone will love the new features, the speed and ease of use of this update.

I sincerely hope all the love and efforts you injected in EIAS V9 will be profitable.

Congratulations, this is an impressive piece of work!

Now, let's all have some fun! Render away!!!!!!

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Rich!

Thanks a lot! Time to make EIAS more and more modern, faster, easier and robust :)

Thanks

Tom