I'm still upset that they bought softimage only to harvest ICE, and then discontinue it once they were done with it.
Their old website from 1996 was WAY ahead of its time
http://web.archive.org/web/19970719164505/http://www.softima...
The way they showed things "poking" through the background really had me.
I went to school at Mesmer Animation Labs in Seattle in 1994 before 3D animation was a thing at any school...
Fond memories of SGI and the O2 as well....
Context -
You could keep the same view of your model - but you could swap between tools (the way you interacted with the model - and all your menus etc on either side by hitting the F keys.. it allowed super fluidity. Then they had nurbs and clay and all sorts or stuff... what killed them was that MAYA was better at rendering (I THINK, i may be wrong - its an old code sir, but I think it checks out))