[coughupalung]

I worked for Weta a few years before the acquisition, let me just say that I'm not surprised that Unity didn't know what to do with it. It was never a single DCC set of code, but lots of separate tools (many very old) that only sort-of worked together. I imagine they would have to throw everything out and start over to build something on the level of Maya or Houdini.

[shadowgovt]

It's always fascinating to me to watch companies do an acquisition of a technical stack that has no pedigree aligned with their own technical stack.

Software has shape, and if you're acquiring a stack that's wildly different from your own, there's no guarantee that integration will be particularly feasible. You may not even be acquiring the talent that would know where to start with such an integration because you never know what key pieces of the system were built ages ago by somebody who left long before acquisition was even discussed.

I've watched this happen with systems as closely aligned as two Python / JavaScript tech stacks that differed in frameworks, libraries, and wire protocol. It took something like 2 and 1/2 years past executive projections to integrate the offerings.

[alex_suzuki]

„Software has shape“ - apt!

[KaiserPro]

I worked in the industry and fairly closely with a number of notable Weta Engineers.

I still don't know why you'd spend 1.6billion on a VFX pipeline. I mean sure it gives you cachet, but a lot of the pipeline is mostly asset management rather than the few bits of special sauce that provide artist tooling.

but 1.6 billion is a ridiculous amount of money for a company's turnover of ~110million[1], with pretty thin profit margins, compared to a software company.

Maybe I'm wrong about weta, they did make mari after all, which is pretty special, however the foundry didn't pay anywhere near that much for mari, for what appears to be a similar licensing deal.

[1]https://rocketreach.co/weta-digital-profile_b5c60ffef42e0c50