E-f has abandoned Amapi and fired all the programmers.

See the direct news from the head programmer:

http://forums.polyloop.net/news-english/12366-good-bye-e-frontier-good-bye-amapi.html

There's a real glut in the modeller market these days... there are simply too many of them around. Hexagon, Silo, Modo, MoI, Rhino, Wings, Shade and many more. And that's just the pure modelers, most of the animation apps like Maya or XSI also have modelling, as well as apps like zBrush and Mudbox. Amapi has always been a bit of an unknown too, not many people even know that it is a fairly decent little tool.

Ah well, hopefuly they will land on their feet and get new work quickly.

I never understood why e-f bought Amapi in the first place.  It's not 
a mass-audience item, as you say, and it competes with Shade.

Leads me to suspect that the whole point was to milk it for a while
then kill it.

Amapi was one of the first modellers I ever tried. I wasn't very comfortable with the interface, and I'm a terrible modeller, so I gave up on it.

Still, sad to see it go. I had been thinking about trying it out again. Ah well. Good luck to the programmers looking for new work though. I hate seeing people lose their jobs.

Quote - ...Shade and many more. And that's just the pure modelers...

Shade does animation too.

Shade is pretty much the same as 3dsMax, Lightwave, etc. A complete 3d package,: modeling, rendering, animation, etc.

Ah i see, thanks for the correction then :) I only know of it by reputation, never actually used it myself.

Just posted at the CP Forums, posted here for those that don't goto those forums. *

Hello all,

Yes unfortunately e frontier Japan, our parent company decided that the way the business was being run in France, that it didn't make sense to continue in that manner. As far as I know, this is not product related but overhead related. A business decision if you will. It doesn't mean that Amapi will not continue it just means that the French office is closed and the employment of the people there has been terminated. I'm hoping we here at efA will be able to work with the dev team still and continue.
I have had the good fortune to work with Thomas closely and he is an outstanding guy, and the best demo person I have seen in my 15 years of software and just a great guy. Amapi was and is very very personal to him. efJ will let us know how this will pan out and we hope that we can continue to work with the guys from the Bordeaux office.

big*

Ah.  That's better news, I think.... ?

I had 2 versions of it as well, it was my 1st modeler too. The interface was a bit strange (but compared to...cough, Blender..it wasn't so convoluted..;) But it was given out fairly regularly on the 3d magazines. There might even be a free version out there, if I remember straight..;)

There are several free versions floating around.  

The reason I'm noticing this story is that I use Amapi (an earlier version) 
daily, and just lately paid e-f $150 to upgrade to Pro ...  because Pro version 8 
was supposed to come out soon.  Allegedly, Pro 8 was going to have 
lots of needed improvements including better handling of Poser-type
meshes.  So the news that the whole thing is dead right before releasing
a major new version, surprised me to say the least!

Sad to hear of this. I have the pro version. I bought it to add to my spline-based tools, but I've been too busy in Lightwave and Poser Setup to actually use it at this point.

Just to add an information, I'm not the head programmer of Amapi (I'm Thomas from Polyloop), but in charge of the workflow, UI, toos description and documentation of Amapi. And I was working very closely with the programmers (we were in the same office, 4 in the same room :)

3D apps are expected to have animation and rendering features.  Amapi reached version 7.5 and had been ditching animation and rendering.  Quite the reverse of the industry trend.  See modo for an example of a 3D app following the correct direction.

Shonner: Ahh, lit has been a long time with no nice messages from you!
It's a shame that you don't know what was the roadmap of Amapi, you always know what happen internally in a software company!
(and FYI, modo don't have the same target as Amapi...)

Quote - modo don't have the same target as Amapi

Correct.  Too bad Amapi couldn't find its target, though.  It was a great modeler with version 7.52.

Shonner: too bad that you miss what Amapi 8 looks like!: :p

As others, I always wondered why EF even wasted money on Amapi at all. But Amaipi isn't the only app I wonder about. I think EF want to be like DAZ, only EF buys the wrong apps no one is really interested in, except for Poser. They better spent all that money on getting Poser well done, otherwise there will be no more EF in the near future.

*Shade is pretty much the same as 3dsMax, Lightwave, etc. A complete 3d package,: modeling, rendering, animation, etc.

*This made me laugh..... really loud. Shade is like 3DSMax or Lightwave, best joke I've heard this week and the week only just started.

Quote -
*Shade is pretty much the same as 3dsMax, Lightwave, etc. A complete 3d package,: modeling, rendering, animation, etc.

*This made me laugh..... really loud. Shade is like 3DSMax or Lightwave, best joke I've heard this week and the week only just started.

Why?  It's a middle to high end program which is consisdered an industry standard in Japan. 

As for the others I wouldn't say that at all that no one uses other EF programs...a lot of us do. 

Quote - Shonner: too bad that you miss what Amapi 8 looks like!: :p

If you guys still own Amapi, I'm sure it will appear one day.  But if e-frontier owns it, then yes, too bad I missed it.

Shade is just perfect for my needs. What I cannot do in Shade, I do in Silo, Poser, Amapi or Vue Infinite.
I also have Lightwave, but for what I do, I find myself working faster in Shade most of the time.
I stopped using 3d Studio Max when I quit a dead-end job, and picked up Shade. I haven't looked back since.
Sure, I don't do special effects for Weta or Pixar and stuff.                              
But for the average user's prowess in the "big" programs, I'ld dare say Shade can match in quality and speed.
Sure, über gurus will make ANY program run for its money, but they'ld also make ANY program look awesome.
As to efrontier stopping the development of Amapi completely, it just doen't make sense. Lets hope they assign a new development team and launch Amapi 8 sooner rather than later.

Quote - They better spent all that money on getting Poser well done, otherwise there will be no more EF in the near future.

Ya know.......if I had a nickel for every doomsday prediction like this one that I've seen directed at e-frontier, DAZ, etc., etc. over the years...........I could retire early on a very comfortable income.