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The company went public in 1992 and was acquired by Microsoft in 1994 for US$130 million.ĭominique Boisvert, Réjean Gagné, Daniel Langlois, and Richard Laperrière won a Scientific and Engineering Award for the development of the 'Actor' component of the Softimage computer animation system Eddie would be acquired by Softimage from Discreet in 1992 and renamed Softimage|Eddie. In 1991, Director of sales Richard Szalwinski left to found Discreet and re-distribute Animal Logic's image compositor Eddie.
SOFTIMAGE 3D 1996 SOFTWARE
The software was eventually replaced by SoftimageXSI, originally codenamed "Sumatra". It was the first commercial package to feature Inverse kinematics for character animation. Its first product was called the Softimage Creative Environment, later renamed to Softimage 3D.
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At the time, there were only three employees.
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He was joined in 1988 by founding director, Char Davies, a Virtual Reality artist who became Vice-President of Virtual Research. Softimage was founded in 1986 by National Film Board of Canada filmmaker Daniel Langlois. In 1997, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Softimage a Scientific and Engineering Award for the development of the "Actor" component of Softimage|3D.ĭuring the Microsoft years, Softimage also developed a non-linear video-editing and compositing suite named Softimage|DS, which was available from Avid Technology under the name Avid DS, until its EOL on September 30, 2013. Its successor, Softimage XSI, was used in the production of the Academy Award-winning feature film Happy Feet, 300 and Charlotte's Web (2006) and the production of games such as Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Its first product, Softimage 3D, was used in the creation of special effects for movies such as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Titanic and The Fifth Element.
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