I hope for the sake of my former colleagues at Weta that those transferred to Unity can simply be transferred back to Weta.
The point of production pipelines being bespoke (at least past a certain company size) is a relevant one. The main workhorses of large scale production (Maya, Houdini, Nuke, etc.) are extremely customizable and extensible. Over years (decades in the case of Weta) companies develop highly complex workflows and associated tools based on these applications.
That is why the Unity deal never really made sense to me. The idea that Weta's tools could somehow be packaged up and delivered as essentially shrink-wrapped consumer-level add-ons to Unity was a naive one at best. I'm not entirely surprised to see it fall apart.
The point of production pipelines being bespoke (at least past a certain company size) is a relevant one. The main workhorses of large scale production (Maya, Houdini, Nuke, etc.) are extremely customizable and extensible. Over years (decades in the case of Weta) companies develop highly complex workflows and associated tools based on these applications.
That is why the Unity deal never really made sense to me. The idea that Weta's tools could somehow be packaged up and delivered as essentially shrink-wrapped consumer-level add-ons to Unity was a naive one at best. I'm not entirely surprised to see it fall apart.