Autodesk Marketing Falsifications

[scottmoyse]

I don't know about everyone else but I have just about had enough of it. Creating marketing videos or blog posts to promote new features in new releases is all well and good as long as they are clear and not misleading. I have found the Hype surrounding the 2012 range of products, (which has likely been a result of the exictement caused by the new Suites) much greater than it has been in recent years. 

Maybe this should be posted elsewhere, but Inventor is a core product that will use each of the points I mention.

There are 3 great examples, I will start with the most outrageous and each one gets less serious, but nevertheless still misleading:

Showcase 2012 youtube video posted by Autodesk

This video claims Design Reps are directly imported into Showcase from Inventor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TFtcAnu5Ec

Although true, the video & narrator emphasizes the use of sections in the Alternatives/Design Reps. The only part of a design rep that is imported is component visibility state, and NOT the Inventor model section views. The only way that scenario could have been created is if the 'sectioned' diff casing was a reference part in the assembly and had been 'sectioned' (extrude cut) in the parts itself. Then 2 design reps are created toggling the visibility between the original (non-reference) part and the 'Sectioned' reference part. The other pointed to the illusion in this video, is Showcase sections can't be displayed when Ray Tracing is enabled. So the section shown isn't a Showcase section, because (from memory, i haven't checked so i'm not 100%) she demos the ray traced visual style at one point. 

This really made my blood boil, because i spent hours trying to get the work flow this marketing video shows, to work. Only to eventually realise the Video was a fake!

Vault Revision History Tables:

This was one of the big new features for Vault 2012. Boy i got really excited about this one, and a lot was made of it too. Across blogs and what's new features etc.. So as soon as a could i set about integrating its use into our process.

Days went by, many questions asked about why I couldn't get it to work, still no answers. Eventually I find out through a vary helpful autodesk support employee, that the marketing literature isn't accurate. Because it turns out the new Vault Revision history table ONLY SUPPORTS RELEASED FILES! was this made clear in any of the blog posts, youtube videos, help files or on the new autodesk Wiki? No! More Marketing smoke and mirrors which caused me lots of frustration and time thinking I was at fault not being able to get it to work.

Vault Job Processor permissions:

The next one highlights the responsibility Autodesk employees have when they are posting on their blogs. The awesome (and i mean that!) guys who contribute to the 'Cracking the Vault' blog posted this back in May. http://crackingthevault.typepad.com/crackingthevault/2011/05/file-locked-when-releasing-a-file.html

Boy did I get excited, finally Autodesk had seen the error in their ways, and had setup the job processor to override user state permissions to update views & sync properties etc. via the Job processor. This meant the same license being used on the machine by the draftsman could be used to run job processor, instead of an administrative one that consumes an extra license unneccesarily. First of all the last line of the blog post wasn't entirely clear, but gave the impression this new behaviour was supported from 2012 onwards.

Again more hours if not days were spent tryign to get this to work. But no one could/would answer my questions as to why it wouldn't work. Turns out its reproducible, it just flat out doesn't work. I'm sure its unintentional, but i'm shocked that wasn't thoroughly tested prior to release and especially before it was announced on the blog. But that in itself is a good point, if its a significant new feature (and it is, and one Autodesk shoudl be proud of) then why isn't it part of the what's new literature? Why is it being annouced on an Autodesk Blog?

Don't get me wrong, I love all these youtube videos, and the Autodesk blogs. They provide a wealth of information, and shouldn't stop! But there is a certain responsibility to be had here, people read and watch this stuff, and if its coming from Autodesk themselves it should be taken as gospel. I take what people like Rob Cohee says with a pinch of Salt, he is very obviously a marketing guy, I love what he does and enjoy his work, embellishing workflows is his job. It is not the job of the Autodesk youtube channel, the wiki, new features documentation or support blogs to do the same!

Whats worse, is more and more people out there will be watching and reading this stuff believing it to be true and may have to go through the same pain I have to find out the truth unless Autodesk do something about it and reign in their marketing techniques!

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

I know you were joking... 🙂

[severin.wille]

Hi Scott,

To start off with - thanks a lot for your interest in Inventor to Showcase workflows. We are very excited to have made significant improvements to the interaction between our applications over the course of the last year.

There is no false information in the Showcase to Inventor video, but the video does not depict the entire workflow as you were hoping to see.

The video is not meant as a tutorial, but intended to show what can be done with Showcase – some steps of the workflow are not shown or talked about.

What is shown in the video is possible, as you point out yourself. What you would have to do to get there is create Design View Representation in Inventor that show exactly the same things you see in the video. This may require you to add a part twice to your Inventor project and generate different appearances in separate design view representations, or to import the model in different states twice into Showcase – whichever you feel more comfortable with or deem more appropriate.

The sections in the video are achieved by cutting the object in Inventor and generating a design view representation. Each design view representation will be converted into a Showcase Slide, which itself will contain Showcase elements necessary to achieve the same state and appearance as in Inventor. The slide will contain a geometry alternative, a material alternative and a shot if appropriate.

You are correct with your observation that Inventor Section Views are not supported when bringing a model into Showcase. You are also correct when mentioning that Showcase Cross Sections are not supported in the Ray Tracing Visual Style in Showcase.

However I could not see or hear any evidence in the video claiming that Inventor section views are supported or converted into Showcase cross sections – could you point us to the portion of the video that you think infers that?

What the video shows is switching between geometry and material alternatives derived from the Inventor file.

You will also notice that the alternatives in the video do not have a linked icon on them anymore, which indicates that they have been altered since the Inventor file was imported and are no longer directly associated with the original Inventor file. This also means that some more work was done to the file alternative to generate a better presentation. Those extra steps are not shown in the video.

What I think I am reading from your feedback though, is the need to also support section views. Is this a correct understanding?

I hope this clarifies the situation and we look forward to seeing a lot of great imagery from you generated in Showcase in the future.

Severin

[scottmoyse]

First of all Severin, thankyou for taking the time to reply to me. I appreciate an Autodesk employee responding to a thread like this, it does indeed show that Autodesk cares. Here is my response to your post.

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severin.wille wrote:

There is no false information in the Showcase to Inventor video, but the video does not depict the entire workflow as you were hoping to see.
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However I could not see or hear any evidence in the video claiming that Inventor section views are supported or converted into Showcase cross sections – could you point us to the portion of the video that you think infers that?

---

In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TFtcAnu5Ec at 1:04 the narrator states: "Inventor Design Views are imported and translated into Showcase Alternatives" While she states that she switches between a un-sectioned view to one that is sectioned. The narrator then immediately goes on to say "this saves you time and you immediately have alternatives to show off in a photorealistic environment", this adds to the illusion, because its simply not true, you have to create additional copies of components with modelled cut sections and then include them in the imported assembly. In actual fact having the ability to import various visibility states setup in Inventor is no different than setting them up in Showcase. In my opinion these things contribute to making this portion of the video very misleading, which in turn means its false representation of what the software can do and its potential productivity benefits.

If the statement and the visual representation of the feature were seperated in the video then I may agree with you and I wouldn't have an issue. However, this is NOT the case, and the claims this feature creates productivity gains are flimsy!

Then at 2:54 the video shows the diff assembly using the ray tracing visual style, including the section. Also misleading, but at the same time (only once you know ray tracing doesn't support showcase cross sections) a clue to the fact the section is a modelled one in Inventor.

Looking forward, yes, I do believe supporting inventor design view cross sections and camera views would be a great idea. Given the current process to achieve it, in the way shown in the video, requires a counter-intuitive, inefficient and non streamlined workflow in Inventor to achieve it.

Another true productivity tool for Inventor to Showcase workflows would be support for custom Inventor materials and not just Autodesk material library materials. Although its nice to see the autodesk material library has been expanded from 2011 to 2012 releases. More often than not we have to use our own custom color styles to truely represent the materials we use, I'm sure we aren't the only ones. But this is starting to get off topic.

Again thankyou for your response and I look forward to hearing you thoughts on the main body of this post.

Cheers

Scott

[severin.wille]

Scott,

the workflows we have added to the 2012 release result in a much more efficient data translation and more streamlined workflows than our 2011 release. Unfortunately you are looking for additional elements that are not supported yet.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions in regards to Section Views and custom materials - we will take your suggestions into consideration for future planning for the software.

Severin

[scottmoyse]

Severin, 

you are completely missing the point of this thread, I have explained it very clearly several times. I'm not sitting here asking or looking for anything. I created this post because there is a lot of misinformation or misleading information on either autodesk websites, autodesk blogs and autodesk or autodesk employee social media sites.

I coincidentally came across one of the people involved in creating the youtube video i have referenced in this thread, once he took the time to understand where I was coming from, he suddenly could see what I am referring too and apologised saying it wasn't their intention. 

You asked for the specific point in the video where it is misleading, I made the effort to lay it all out, give you the exact second it occured and the words used and then you reply disappointingly with.

---

@severin.wille wrote:

Scott,

the workflows we have added to the 2012 release result in a much more efficient data translation and more streamlined workflows than our 2011 release. Unfortunately you are looking for additional elements that are not supported yet.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions in regards to Section Views and custom materials - we will take your suggestions into consideration for future planning for the software.

Severin

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Do you work in the marketing department? Because thats how that reply reads.

Thanks for your time all the same

Scott

[freesbee]

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@severin.wille wrote:

(...)

What I think I am reading from your feedback though, is the need to also support section views. Is this a correct understanding?

(...)

---

...this is definitely correct.

I assume this is a whish of many possible users, and would be interesting to have it by the 2015.

[mrattray]

A better place to post about features you'd like to see added to Inventor is the Inventor IdeaStation. You'll likely see a more positive response than posting on a 2 year old thread.

[freesbee]

Mike, you're right, I was just too lazy to check over there if somebody is asking the same...

But I will, I promise 😉

[tmoney2007]

You should see all of my ideas in the vault idea station.

Its just frustrating when features seem to be released half baked after the users get excited and want to use them.  Breaking it to them that the feature that made them choose a particular software doesn't actually do what it seems like it should based on marketing and sales.