Constantly Amazed

[miketruly]

I am just constantly amazed by Autodesk as it fumbles products. I have a business to run and it aggravates me to no end when I have to deal with poor implementations that impede my business operations.

I use Combustion as my primary compositing app with MAX. Except that Combustion is no longer usable with Backburner 2013 and since I would like to migrate to using MAX2013, I must re-tool my pipeline to use another compositing app. (No, I would not like to start using command line code to get Combustion working... I like the BB GUI thank you very much). So Composite (Toxik) is included with MAX... great (certainly feels like another dying on the vine Autodesk app). So I set out to learn and experiment with Composite to see what pain I will endure in this process. I crash it within one minute of trying to use it and the absurdity of dialog boxes that don't resize and not being able to navigate to other drives on the network certainly don't make me think very well of the experience to come.

So I decide that I should install the latest Composite Service Pack in order to make sure I am using the latest version as I move forward and give Composite a fair shake. (Hey... I thought I remembered that Autodesk was now calling them Produce Updates instead of Service Packs? Guess they get an F in the consistency department.)

So I download the latest version and it's a zipfile and I unzip it and it unzips an MSI and a CAB file. (Not very tidy but OK).

I go to run the MSI and it asks if I want to install the Service Pack down in Program Files>Autodesk>Composite 2013 Service Pack 2>... huh?

My Composite is installed at the root in:

C:\3dsMax2013_64\Composite 2013>

The installer is not smart enough to find my installed version of Composite? Since the installer file is huge, and the installer talks about 'installing' as opposed to 'updating' I have no idea what it's about to do next. I don't want a new installation of Composite down in Program Files, I want it to update my existing installation where it is.

Any idea what this poorly implemented installer is about to do? If it merely wants to be pointed to the existing Composite installation why doesn't it use plain English and say so?

Thanks for any ideas.

[Kreaction]

Last time I checked Composite, SPs were never updates. You have to uninstall it, then install it back with most recent version.
I hope you will sort it out for your pipeline. We used it, it is an amazing software, but not polished, hard to setup robust, and let's see what happens in the future, if any.

[miketruly]

Thank you very much for the info.

With your guidance, I have now seen in the Readme that this will install a totally new Composite version alongside the old version. Which is totally unlike the Service Packs (and now Product Updates) of MAX which always updated the existing installs. I like the option of having multiple versions available to use but they could have made it a bit more clear had they added some verbage to the install dialog.

Thanks again.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Composite isn't developed by the 3ds max team. Other products like Maya and Softimage use similar "update" routines were it is an uninstall/install update procedure. Composite falls under the same PM that is now over Maya, Softimage, and ECS as well.

-Eric

[miketruly]

Thanks for the info Eric.

I am only familiar with MAX & Combustion as far as the Autodesk products and frankly, as a customer, don't really care what team develops what... that is Autodesk's concern. My point is more that it would be better if there was some update method consistency (across the organization) to simplify the customer's experience or an extra few words added to an install dialog so the user could understand what/how Autodesk intends to install.

I actually like the concept of 'installing alongside' as it allows me to keep previous versions installed.

Thanks again.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

You are talking about something that probably isn't a simple change. Also, making massive changes at a company the size of Autodesk won't be something rapid. Beyond that, always read the read me files. If the information is out there it will be in that file that comes with the update.

-Eric

[michaelwbell]

Hi Mike,

6 months on - did you end up sticking with Composite or are you working with another app? Just out of interest's sake.

Thinking of investing some serious time into learning Composite to use alongside Ae when needed.