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Petition to keep perpetual licensing at Autodesk

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Long-time users of Autodesk software have started a thread on Autodesk's forum, protesting the price raise of the maintenance plans and asking the company to keep the perpetual/maintenance licensing option. Many high profile 3D artists are participating, including some who have been using 3D Studio since version 1.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/moving-to-subscription/keep-perpetual-maintenance-licensing/td-p/6970221/highlight/false

As I found this message on CGPress, I immediately went there. A lot of people saying what really made them angry over the years and find it's climax in the business plan change. Same did I.

And there is an Avaaz campaign against this:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Autodesk_Change_their_business_plan/

Sign this guys.
The increasing prices are just killing freelancers business.


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  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator

    Have you guys ever wondered why the entire games industry doesn't just switch to Blender?
    * You will need to re-create tools, such as pipeline tools. For example a client has a neat Substance integration for Maya - they would have to rewrite that. But an AAA studio will likely have lots of tools. This will get expensive. And until those tools are ready your art team will be less productive, costing you more money.

    * You will have to train artists. People have families, a social life. Not everyone will be happy to spend their free time learning Blender. While people learn, they will be less productive.

    * It's a massive change, There will be user resistance. Not everyone will welcome Blender with open arms. Some people may fight its adoption. Lots of stress for everyone.

    * Currently, fewer training materials, scripts, and other resources available.

    * Job candidates will, for now, not have Blender skills. See training.

    * If you use outsourcing (many AAA studios do!) then your outsourcer needs to follow suit in using Blender, or you will have to convert everything from OBJ/FBX to Blender yourself. And some stuff will be almost impossible to outsource if the outsourcer doesn't use Blender (e.g. animation, rigging).

    * Experience will be totally lost. You cannot learn experience. You get it over years. With getting Blender-experience you start at 0.

    * There is the risk that Blender cannot do what your current product can do just fine. You need a Plan B. Unless some other studio takes the risk to pick up Blender and shows that it work - this can help a lot to dispel producers' fears. e.g. This happened for Substance when Naughty Dog pioneered it - suddenly people saw "it works!". But being a pioneer is risky.

    Add it all together, and you get a lot of uncertainty and lost productivity. As a producer or manager you will ask yourself "Is the premium I pay to Autodesk more expensive than the losses I incur from switching?" and "Do I prefer playing it safe, and possibly paying more, or do I switch to an new untested solution?". Currently the situation is "it's rather expensive, but it mostly works, and it was hard to get there - do we really want to start it all over?"





  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
    I know I ranted in my previous message but what was mentioned above is true. Maya or Max is too deep in most solo\small to large studios.  

    You can learn Blender and Max for example, although learn one really well then slowly start learning the other; then when you're older you will be valuable. Better a great 10-15 yr career then a mundane 25 year career.


  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    Hard enough going from maya 2016 to maya 2017 I doubt moving to another package entirely would be feasible.

    It would take months of development time to recreate art, and rigging pipelines. A move like this couldn't happen during production, and wouldn't happen during any pre-production. So it would require dedicated resources to just migrating. Its about as complicated as switching engines. 
  • kio
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    kio polycounter lvl 15
    great points pior and kwramm!

    the thing is I think if you updated your average AD product every 2-3 years its just not "that" much more expensive now. Max & Maya were always pricey from my point of view...

    @kwramm do you feel blender gains any traction on a "professional" level - like have you had blender related work orders on your company at all?

  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    I think the guys over at Fabric Engine understood that particular problem and offered a solution, or the making of one.  It would make sense to push for that first, then the migration to other software, assuming the reliance on autodesk is too strong at the current studio.





  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    kio said:
    @kwramm do you feel blender gains any traction on a "professional" level - like have you had blender related work orders on your company at all?

    I wish. I'm very, very open to giving open source software a shot. But in the 7 years I've been in outsourcing I didn't encounter a single Blender project (but we got requests for XSI, 3ds Max 9(!!!) and a project using Maya 8.5 - we only turned down the XSI one due to XSI licensing). It could have been that sales filtered them out, but I doubt that this happened.
  • Blond
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    Blond polycounter lvl 9
    For those still reticent to jump ship, here's a sneak preview of what's coming in the next iterations of Blender.



    https://code.blender.org/2017/03/eevee-roadmap/
  • Cristian_P
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    Cristian_P polycounter lvl 2
    Well, if the industry as a whole doesn't decide to just take the plunge into Blender, Autodesk will just keep spitting in the face of the common user and keep robbing companies.  The switch doesn't necessarily have to happen overnight.  But having at least a road map and long-term plan to be Autodesk-free in 'x' number of years would be a tremendously good start, I think.  Otherwise, it's like you're stuck in an abusive relationship that just leaves you more bruised and battered as time goes by.
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    Well, if the industry as a whole doesn't decide to just take the plunge into Blender, Autodesk will just keep spitting in the face of the common user and keep robbing companies.  The switch doesn't necessarily have to happen overnight.  But having at least a road map and long-term plan to be Autodesk-free in 'x' number of years would be a tremendously good start, I think.  Otherwise, it's like you're stuck in an abusive relationship that just leaves you more bruised and battered as time goes by.
    This is ridiculous. Why would Autodesk ever announce they plan to go free. That's just bad business. The industry can't switch software 'as a whole' I would never approve a pipeline that makes years worth of tools work irrelevant and useless. We'd be losing thousands of of dollars of dev time and money into pipelines.  
  • Blond
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    Blond polycounter lvl 9
    Well, if the industry as a whole doesn't decide to just take the plunge into Blender, Autodesk will just keep spitting in the face of the common user and keep robbing companies.  The switch doesn't necessarily have to happen overnight.  But having at least a road map and long-term plan to be Autodesk-free in 'x' number of years would be a tremendously good start, I think.  Otherwise, it's like you're stuck in an abusive relationship that just leaves you more bruised and battered as time goes by.


    Well, no need to cross your fingers for this one, chances it'll happen if 2.8 delivers its promises. All the announced features for the next Blender installement almost seems too good to be true but generally, the Blender deves holds on to their promise, not necessarily in time but they always do, sooner or later. There's always the rich user community to rely on if you need more specific tools.

    Before 2.5, Blender was a joke. Some shady software only approached by some few very shady niche users.

    Then 2.5 came, changed the whole game, UI ,approach to Blender. The software modernized itself and brough in new tools with .6 and .7.

    Today, it's a solid software used by many indie artists. While I haven't seen being used in a studio myself, I've heard stories from my friends who worked in studios like Ubisoft;

    ''Oh yeh, there are some modelers who use Blender and they do crazy stuff with it''...

    Blender can definitely be used in big scales project by a few departments (most flexible one is the modeling since everything can easily be exported through fbx, obj,etc.).

    Now wait until this one studio decides to use the software for a project (and hopefully it's big scale succesful one)...

    Personnaly, I do not mind using AD products since they can be solid usually, but I will most likely only use them in a production pipeline where the licenses are already paid and I don't have to hustle through AD shitty policies. At home, I'll satisfy myself with my 3 years student versions (renewable every year with new installments) and stick with Blender for any indie projects I have in mind.


  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    RF : He's just saying that going "Autodesk-free" could be something that a studio could plan in advance. For instance a small internal team working on a light project could start transitioning and see how that goes.

    But all that said, things are somewhat straightforward really, it all boils down to two scenarios. Complex pipelines relying on a lot of Maya or Max-dependant tools would be a chore to change, no doubt. But any studio with a pipeline centered around the Unreal or Unity editor could transition quite easily since it is already possible to author art assets for these engines without the need for any Autodesk program.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    I'm about to try my third 30 day trial for Modo, lets see what happens :pensive:

    I've had clients specify that files had to be delivered as Max or Maya files, how do you guys get around that? Just pay for a month's subscription?
  • Cristian_P
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    Cristian_P polycounter lvl 2

    Hehe...  Indeed, thanks for clarifying, Pior. 

    Yes, Autodesk wouldn't go free in a million years.  But even if the entire game industry were to somehow abandon Max and Maya, they'd still be richer than their competitors.  The Architecture industry is basically married for life to Autodesk  ; )

    Blond said:
    Before 2.5, Blender was a joke. Some shady software only approached by some few very shady niche users.  Then 2.5 came, changed the whole game, UI ,approach to Blender. The software modernized itself and brough in new tools with .6 and .7 ...
    I know, right?  As I mentioned, I never used Blender myself, but I've been looking from the outside at its incredible evolution and have been amazed.  This is why I basically dared to think that there may be a future when Blender will be widely adopted by game companies.
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Speaking of Modo and customer support, what do you guys think of this?
    http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088212799/recommended/401090/
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    One thing about Blender is that it actually used to be commercial software and instead of letting it die out, a campaign was run to make it a free and open source application. I believe this was in the early 2000's.  Wish the same could have happened to XSI instead of AD burying it.

    Regarding Modo, its definitely making inroads into the game dev. Just hope Foundry doesn't turn into another Autodesk at some point.
  • marks
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    marks greentooth
    Well, if the industry as a whole doesn't decide to just take the plunge into Blender, Autodesk will just keep spitting in the face of the common user and keep robbing companies.  The switch doesn't necessarily have to happen overnight.  But having at least a road map and long-term plan to be Autodesk-free in 'x' number of years would be a tremendously good start, I think.  Otherwise, it's like you're stuck in an abusive relationship that just leaves you more bruised and battered as time goes by.
    ... I would never approve a pipeline that makes years worth of tools work irrelevant and useless. We'd be losing thousands of of dollars of dev time and money into pipelines.  
    Isn't this exactly the "sunk cost fallacy" .. ? How many HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars are you losing on overpriced autodesk subscriptions, every year ?
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    marks said:
    Well, if the industry as a whole doesn't decide to just take the plunge into Blender, Autodesk will just keep spitting in the face of the common user and keep robbing companies.  The switch doesn't necessarily have to happen overnight.  But having at least a road map and long-term plan to be Autodesk-free in 'x' number of years would be a tremendously good start, I think.  Otherwise, it's like you're stuck in an abusive relationship that just leaves you more bruised and battered as time goes by.
    ... I would never approve a pipeline that makes years worth of tools work irrelevant and useless. We'd be losing thousands of of dollars of dev time and money into pipelines.  
    Isn't this exactly the "sunk cost fallacy" .. ?
     It's more than that. You're throwing away an existing Maya/Max pipeline - that's okay because of the sunk cost fallacy (i.e. the money has already been spent in the past - you're not getting it back by sticking to Maya/Max). But usually you want the same (or similar) pipeline for your new product - and that will cost you extra money and impact your immediate future profit! Hence you need toy make a strategic decision.
  • Aabel
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    Aabel polycounter lvl 6
     The industry can't switch software 'as a whole' I would never approve a pipeline that makes years worth of tools work irrelevant and useless. We'd be losing thousands of of dollars of dev time and money into pipelines.  

     There is the possibility that other software is actually cheaper to develop tools and pipeline around. Wouldn't it be better to switch and save money on not only licensing but also tools and pipeline development?
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    Aabel said:
     The industry can't switch software 'as a whole' I would never approve a pipeline that makes years worth of tools work irrelevant and useless. We'd be losing thousands of of dollars of dev time and money into pipelines.  

     There is the possibility that other software is actually cheaper to develop tools and pipeline around. Wouldn't it be better to switch and save money on not only licensing but also tools and pipeline development?
    the problem is that there is waaaay too much time already invested to a pipeline, and switching tottally you would :

    - have artists that were used to make stuff in max\maya\modo\etc have to struggle with a new package that might\might not have the tools that they use daily.
    -have tech artists\programmers develop those missing tools\test them etc.
    -have to hire ALOT more programmers to make blender fit onto the pipeline correctly with the engine integration\custom "bridges" between engine\modeling package
    -lots of testing\bug hunting from artists ( that could use that time to simple make art instead of struggling with a force fed program to cut costs )
    -overall chaos as you would set deadlines ALOT beyond because of this. 

    The only way i could see it working is 1 year or so before production to start to have all artists onboard, get familiarized with the tools, have direct contact with tech artists\programmers. But very few studios can burn throu a single year of production to save some licenses.
  • Cristian_P
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    Cristian_P polycounter lvl 2
    PolyHertz said:
    Speaking of Modo and customer support, what do you guys think of this?
    http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088212799/recommended/401090/
    The Foundry isn't as unpleasant and vile as Autodesk in terms of business decisions and the way they treat their customers...  but the truth is that they're not really that far off.  I'd probably rate them as third worst after Autodesk and Adobe in the pasture of developers today.

    It's a bit unfortunate for Modo since after Luxology sold it to the Foundry, development and communication on the Modo front has began to stagnate.  Modo still retains a lot of its passionate developers.  And in my opinion, it's still the best modeling, retopology, and UV-ing package on the market.  But you can definitely feel the corporate regulation and management of the Foundry now.

    With that said, I wouldn't look at Steam reviews of Modo Indie in order to gauge how good a program Modo is or how customer-centric the Foundry is.  Modo Indie is a crippled version of Modo that I believe should either be free like Blender (for non-commercial purposes), or not available at all.  I've seen too many ragamuffins buy Modo Indie for $15 and then complain that they can't follow Tor Frick's videos : ))  It's great for young hobbyists, but not for serious artists.

    Edit:  Upon closer inspection, I just realized that Modo Indie is $300!  x'D  Yeah, the kid throwing a temper tantrum that the Foundry isn't responding to his e-mails is now justified in my books.  My apologies to all the ragamuffins.  I remember first buying the FULL Modo 501 or 601 (can't recall) several years ago in college when it was on sale for something like $450.  Now look at these greedy bastards...  See where this world is headed?  Adopt Blender now before it's too late!  >; [
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    PolyHertz said:
    Speaking of Modo and customer support, what do you guys think of this?
    http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088212799/recommended/401090/

    When Modo Indie first came out, I noticed there was some confusion even within the Foundry regarding it. Toss in some snobbery from the support end (not so much the development end) who is used to dealing mainly with Mari/Nuke for film/vfx studios and I wouldn't be surprised by that reaction.

    Chances are high Indie will probably migrate away from Steam at some point and or appear as an offering on their main website. Once that happens I expect the support situation to adapt appropriately. It also looks like with the new website/forums there is an attempt to be more accessible to the average user.

    Always take those reviews with a grain of salt as well. There really is no proof that was said or context to explain the reaction if true.


  • knacki
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    knacki polycounter lvl 11
    So, that's what max users have paid for in 2018.
    http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2018/ENU/index.html?guid=GUID-F687E23D-6FBA-4C8A-9202-C30F2860E5BE

    Please try to relax, overwhelming joy is incalculable!

    Others let their enthusiasm go in this thread:
    https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3dsmax-2018-excuse-me-i-seem-to-be-looking-at-2017/td-p/7010966

    Got to go to the release party now.
    :# 



  • VelvetElvis
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    VelvetElvis polycounter lvl 12
    Let's put out some numbers. We pay roughly $8,000 for our team's Max licenses per year. For our team to be down just one week of production, putting zero product out the door, costs us $25,000 in lost billable hours. We're also pretty vanilla Max users with only a handful of scripts and custom tools but we have a huge library of models/materials that we pull from almost daily. For us not to go into financial ruin, we would need to transition over to a new software, including conversion of all models and materials, in about 2 days.

    So let's say that we can convert and re-educate over in 2 weeks and we are willing to take a $50,000 loss to do that. We'd finally be able to give Autodesk the finger after 7 (6.25 to be exact, but we can't buy 1/4th of a year's license) years.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    re: the foundry, i found this to be a rather off-putting read: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1151366

    if anyone recalls the original wording on their free/trial versions terms of usage (i think they reworded at some point though), those were also rather 'funney', hinting at an attitude somewhat out of touch with the general vibe of the CG userbase. not convinced.


  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Blond said:
    For those still reticent to jump ship, here's a sneak preview of what's coming in the next iterations of Blender.


    https://code.blender.org/2017/03/eevee-roadmap/
    I'm not trying to be a jerk but nothing in that preview interested me. I'd actually love to see a program with no lighting rendering or animation tools, just a rock solid modeler. I only care about how my asset looks in engine, I get great results in Marmoset Toolbag, Substance Painter, Unreal & Unity.
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8

    Let's put out some numbers. We pay roughly $8,000 for our team's Max licenses per year. For our team to be down just one week of production, putting zero product out the door, costs us $25,000 in lost billable hours. We're also pretty vanilla Max users with only a handful of scripts and custom tools but we have a huge library of models/materials that we pull from almost daily. For us not to go into financial ruin, we would need to transition over to a new software, including conversion of all models and materials, in about 2 days.

    So let's say that we can convert and re-educate over in 2 weeks and we are willing to take a $50,000 loss to do that. We'd finally be able to give Autodesk the finger after 7 (6.25 to be exact, but we can't buy 1/4th of a year's license) years.
    Out of curiosity, why would you attempt (hypothetically) to go cold turkey with such a switch? One would think, in a best case scenario, that only one seat of the alternative software would be introduced into the pipeline as a means of transitioning smoothly while leaving open the possibility to pull out. Alternatively, all it takes is one artist to spend a bit of time on their own with the said software.

    Since a lot of the underlying concepts are the same, and there is effort by the competition to ease transitions, it shouldn't, realistically speaking, be too bad. (example: https://community.foundry.com/playlist/1063/using-modo-with-3ds-max-tutorial-series)


  • VelvetElvis
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    VelvetElvis polycounter lvl 12
    Dataday said:
    Out of curiosity, why would you attempt (hypothetically) to go cold turkey with such a switch? One would think, in a best case scenario, that only one seat of the alternative software would be introduced into the pipeline as a means of transitioning smoothly while leaving open the possibility to pull out. Alternatively, all it takes is one artist to spend a bit of time on their own with the said software.

    Since a lot of the underlying concepts are the same, and there is effort by the competition to ease transitions, it shouldn't, realistically speaking, be too bad. (example: https://community.foundry.com/playlist/1063/using-modo-with-3ds-max-tutorial-series)



    We are a small enough team that it would still be hard to have only one artist not producing just so they can test out a new piece of software. If we have people working on company time, we try to make sure they are doing a task that we know is worth it. So it would probably be best if we did the transition as quickly as possible like pulling off a band-aid. I would not encourage someone on the team to do r&d at home on their own time.

    In concept, the transition should be straight forward. In reality, I think we'd be buried in asset conversion. We work primarily in architecture, so our deadlines are already at ludicrous speed, so it would be a struggle to even convert assets on an as needed basis.

  • heartlessph1l
    I'm slowly switching from max to zbrush. I plan to do all my hard surface with zmodeler. I hate autodesk 3ds max. Slow ass dinosaur that crash all the time and way too expensive!
  • Matt Fagan
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    Matt Fagan polycounter lvl 9
    I just have to say ouch! to any potential 3ds Max 2018 users...Pretty much nothing,..except Arnold.


  • JordanN
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    JordanN interpolator
    Are there any penalties with sticking with 3DS Max 2017? Like, can Autodesk force subscribers to upgrade if they don't want to?
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    when they launch 2019 ill be able to say that i use a 10 years old max version. Good times.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    I'm not trying to be a jerk but nothing in that preview interested me. I'd actually love to see a program with no lighting rendering or animation tools, just a rock solid modeler.
    with lighting and rendering you usually gain baking and projection tools, procedurals and who knows what. with animation come deformers, skinning, morphing, skin wrapping functionality, a beyond-the-basics export file format support and so on. all of which can be useful even for just a modelling/texturing workflow. :)
  • VelvetElvis
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    VelvetElvis polycounter lvl 12
    Except Arnold that you only have 1 license for. If you want to render on more than just your machine, you have to pony up for the extra licenses.

    I really wish AD would release Max as an a-la cart sort of deal. You get the base Max tool set for a smaller cost and then you can add on extra items as needed like character tools, Mass FX, anything other than scanline rendering, etc. We will never use Arnold, we will never even install it. So why did we pay for it? To me, this would ween out the less developed tools as no one would buy them and either AD would be forced to make them better or discontinue them.
  • Michael Knubben
    Justin:
    • An old version of MODO
    • NVIL
    • Rocket 3F
    • Silo
    • Hexagon
    • Wings3D

    That's not to say these are all still relevant and functional, but the point is: there have been plenty. And At least those three first ones are still perfectly functional (NVIL in particular excels at being just a modeler).
    Not trying to be a jerk, but... have you tried any of these?


  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    I loved Silo, I wish it was still getting updates. 
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Justin:
    • An old version of MODO
    • NVIL
    • Rocket 3F
    • Silo
    • Hexagon
    • Wings3D

    That's not to say these are all still relevant and functional, but the point is: there have been plenty. And At least those three first ones are still perfectly functional (NVIL in particular excels at being just a modeler).
    Not trying to be a jerk, but... have you tried any of these?


    I've tried 2 30 day trials of Modo, I'm going to be trying another 30 day trial. I don't need any 3d app that does baking, I bake my normals and AO in Toolbag 3 and the rest of my maps in Substance Painter.

    I think I tried Silo because my mom bought me a training DVD one Christmas years back so I figured I should give it a shot.
  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
    I tried Silo for the first time, for a traditional modeling program it is quite nice; although if I can't find a few features that I require I'll cease continuing to use the program. What makes is interesting is it's simply a modeler; great for modeling anything at low to high res; then moving to a 3D program for further modeling tweaks and onto whatever you want to do.
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