Yes a price difference between Maya/Photoshop is justified because the number of people you can sell Maya to is significantly smaller then the number of people you can sell Photoshop to.
Regardless of the price you put on Maya.
It is a more specialized software that requires probably equal if not more programmers to work on.
So in order to have enough funds to support development and due to smaller user base, the price will be higher.
Even factoring in the different prices and annual discounts, you're still comparing 4.2% of the total cost of a single piece of software ($3675), to 1.9% of the total cost of an entire suite of software ($2599). Is Maya really worth double the entire Adobe suite per month?
This must be a rhetorical question. What something is worth is what someone is willing to buy. Maya is so fing good and will get better next year with open subdiv and bifrost. $200 a month isnt much - if you can get decent freelance contracts you should easily cover it
$200 a month is insane when you consider that the last 5 years or so of updates for Max have been meager at best. I'd be pissed if I was paying $2,400 a year to use a piece of software that was barely ever updated and never had bugs fixed. Bugs that have existed for YEARS...
To Adobe's credit, they have released some good stuff in the CC series of apps and I feel I'm getting my subscription value there so far. Bear in mind, this is $50 for ALL of their apps. Autodesk is talking about $200 for a single app. They could at least bundle in Mudbox or something and make it a complete offering for 3D artists.
You can make the same money freelance doing 2D art in Photoshop or doing After Effects animation. So double the price is sort of cost prohibitive if you aren't making double the money as a 3D artist.
I dont buy the "number of people you can sell Maya to is significantly smaller then the number of people you can sell Photoshop to" argument at all. It's also not just photoshop though. If someone needed just one of those niche apps adobe offers, they have access to it for less. Take aftereffects for example.
But hey its fine, if you would rather not compete and push the indies towards your competition, then thats your right. I just dont think you guys understand your market and seem to suffer from heightened self worth syndrome.
I wanted to ask, would it be possible to export the Shader file (once done creating it) in CGFX, etc, format, to be loaded and used in an different version of Maya, or if Max doesn't get the LT treatment?
OT: Why is it almost a whole $2000 on the price here in Australia? $6055
Accounting for currency difference as well.
Also my 2 cents on the subject, Adobe's CC is what $50 a month, so if i work 38 hours a week at a rate of, hypothetically of course, at $25p/h which is reasonable IMO for an "indie developer" i'm only working 2 hours out of my 152 hour week to pay for the tools i use.
Maya LT on the other hand is a whole $325 (AUS) a month, that's 13 working hours out of 152 just to pay for the tool you use to make money. A whole day and a half! )
Not everyone is Half Brick or Minecraft level of indie developer that can turn millions P.A
But hey charge what you will, people will still buy it.
I'll just sell my kidney and save up to buy it outright.
P.s Its 5am here and i've been awake since 8am the day before, i will not be held responsible for any mistakes in my mathematics
I wanted to ask, would it be possible to export the Shader file (once done creating it) in CGFX, etc, format, to be loaded and used in an different version of Maya
Yes. But the future goal is to also be able to take your ShaderFX graph to the other applications. Without having to bake it down to a CGFX/HLSL file.
3D is a niche industry not a commodity and Photoshop has a massive presence amongst photographers, designers etc. When was the last time you saw a photographer ask for Maya to do their work?
Precisely why Maya LT exists for the indie market.
After Effects caters to the similarly niche industry of 2D animation and visual effects. Yet it's price is orders of magnitude less. Furthermore I don't know why you guys keep mentioning Photoshop specifically when the price comparisons have been against the entire adobe creative suite.
Yes. But the future goal is to also be able to take your ShaderFX graph to the other applications. Without having to bake it down to a CGFX/HLSL file.
Oh, so the entire lineup of Autodesk will have this ability? That would be interesting to see, any chances of creating the ability to 'lock' the files as well if that is implemented, or encrypt so people don't meddle with them other then visual usage?
3D is a niche industry not a commodity and Photoshop has a massive presence amongst photographers, designers etc. When was the last time you saw a photographer ask for Maya to do their work?
Precisely why Maya LT exists for the indie market.
I dont think its as niche as you make it out to be, a lot has changed over the years, but that wasnt what I was referring to specifically. What I didnt buy was how that reasoning is used within the context of a higher charge for a subscription platform that borderline feels anti-consumer.
Lets face it, how much of the revenue made actually goes right back into R&D? According to a report from 2010, only 10%. What we see as consumers is not research and development, but more acquisition of other software or plug-ins, some go into maya, some dont.
So if one were to buy into the mentality of it being a niche and thus higher cost, then logic would dictate that the user's actually see the added cost go back into the software they rely on. That doesnt seem to be the case. If only a tiny fraction of the revenue made actually goes back into Maya, then its hard to justify paying MORE instead of LESS.
Make sense? I am not surprised at how much the CEO of AD makes, nor do I care really, but if one is pushed to pay more for that supposed niche, then make sure the money spent on all those subs and higher price points actually goes back into the software itself... just common sense.
3D is a niche industry not a commodity and Photoshop has a massive presence amongst photographers, designers etc. When was the last time you saw a photographer ask for Maya to do their work?
Precisely why Maya LT exists for the indie market.
pricing is high because it is a niche industry or the industry is niche because of the ridiculous pricing ? :poly121:
I'm really glad you guys "patched the holes" in Maya LT, it's much better package right now and actually something that the target customers would enjoy. I wouldn't have ever considering buying Maya LT without Mel, they're my favorite couple :P
I would love a Maya targeted at game developers so that we can get excited about every new release, knowing it will be relevant for game development. It's also nice that it was cleaned of the stuff irrelevant to indie game devs.
However, I'm concerned that Maya LT was "cleaned" a little too much and is now a little incomplete in rigging and animation. And I also really hate to see the wrap deformer and wire tool removed which are very useful for modeling as well.
To people who know rigging and animation: How important are those removed features, such as animation layers and spline IK, for low-budget game developers?
Here's the comparison between Maya and Maya LT. Look at the top for the extension features in which they added back a few things.
I appreciate the devs coming to the forums. And I realize they are trying to strike a difficult balance of making Maya LT complete for low-budget indie game devs while still incomplete for the Maya markets(film, high-budget games). But I hope they can do just a little more to make it complete for me, then I'll be very happy to get that annual rental deal soon.
I would gladly update my scripts to be compatible with Maya LT. Unfortuntely I don't own it so I can't test it myself. (I also doubt my retopo script can be used since it requires a python plugin)
Hi Froyok! I installed Maya LT Extension 2 today, and your current tools version works out of the box! For some reason I had to restart maya for all the icons to show, but I think thats a LT issue!
Is there no way to get the Extensions without subscription? I think not, however, I am stuck with the student version of LT, which doesn't save settings (reverts to radians, instead of degrees), it doesn't save/export weightmap paints, no scripting aaaand no obj export.
I use my custom toolbar from older Maya, so I could actually use the Mel Scripts, like FroTools, Roadkill, etc. It's a workaround. Yet, my Maya LT only has FBX export, and I need an OBJ exporter in order to make Roadkill work. I was curious about LT, for ShaderFX, Turtle and texture baking, but I am working with a version of LT that Autodesk should be ashamed to offer to anyone, student or not.
Why are there so many crucial functions unavailable in the student version? Why would they remove the viewcube, now I finally got used to the thing ^^? What am I supposed to do with it without updates. The student version of LT is halfway useless, so I recommend for students to get full Maya versions and pray Autodesk releases improved versions of Maya LT to their customers who aren't on subscription, in the future.
Also: Are Autodesk Service Packs incremental, or do I need to download SP1, SP2, SP3, subsequently?
I'm not sure it's quite as clear cut as that. You're comparing two very different types of products with some very different capabilities and technologies.
Regardless of the product, maya or adobe suite, the money still comes out of the same wallet. Even if 3D art is a niche industry, all the consumer wants is value for money. As a consumer my opinion is that adobe is offering value for money with thier cloud service and autodesk is not.
Hey, is there any possibility of Maya LT interfacing with Substance Designer/Painter? I am thinking about making my first major 3d app purchase and use Substance Designer so support would be nice. I am currently leaning towards Modo because of its support.
If you use LT I suggest trying the demo first. It "forgot" some of my settings, so every time I had to switch "radians" back to "degrees", in order to use the snap rotate. It also doesn't quite work as well in the UV-editor, since it won't just merge two vertexes in the editor, you actually have to match them by hand and merge. Hmm what else: no storying/saving weight maps, no obj export (which means Roadkill doesn't work).
I know I wrote part of this before, but the student version of LT is really not nearly as good as the student version of Maya 2014. Somehow a lot of things are not yet working. Subscription LT seems to have been fixed in that regard, but seriously, who would pay subscription, if you can get a permanent license after 4 months for the same price. Obviously you'd want a permantent license for a MayaLT that actually works the way it should, which the current student version does not.
Hey, is there any possibility of Maya LT interfacing with Substance Designer/Painter? I am thinking about making my first major 3d app purchase and use Substance Designer so support would be nice. I am currently leaning towards Modo because of its support.
I dont see any reason why not. You may want to look into Shader FX and see if it is what you are looking for. Here is a link to an overview. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPl_ztbrkU"]Maya LT - ShaderFX - YouTube[/ame]
I know this is a Maya LT thread, but if Autodesk can add shaderFX to Mudbox then that would be awesome. texturing in Mudbox with the addition of such shaders would definitely be something very useful.
Yeah but I thought there's a limit on the polygon number of the objects to be exported. Makes it impossible to export hi-poly meshes. And there's no obj export apparently(at least for trial version). Would be really nice to have limitless export only for obj.
Yeah but I thought there's a limit on the polygon number of the objects to be exported. Makes it impossible to export hi-poly meshes. And there's no obj export apparently(at least for trial version). Would be really nice to have limitless export only for obj.
Hey igi,
There is OBJ support in Extension 2 and the poly limit has been raised to 65,000. You can also bake inside of maya lt with turtle which is fairly robust. Not sure about cages though, I dont think it uses them
hmm I see, turtle baking plugin does not support cage projection so it is a huge downside for me and probably I'm not the only one who thinks that way.
I had absolutely no trouble in baking normals in MayaLT. It has consistently given me good results. It has a "cage" you just don't really see it. It is all controlled in turtle through the type of method. (inward, outward, best then setting your distances) i personally find it easier, faster and gives better results than the traditional methods ive used in apps before it (max, xNormal etc.)
I saw an ad here on polycount that says Maya LT is on Steam with Dota2 support. The link led me nowhere though. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a region lock thing going on but it doesn't show up in google either. Anyone can open the Steam store page for that?
I saw an ad here on polycount that says Maya LT is on Steam with Dota2 support. The link led me nowhere though. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a region lock thing going on but it doesn't show up in google either. Anyone can open the Steam store page for that?
If you subscribe on Steam then you're given 30 days but if you cancel within those 30 days you can still use it until those 30 days are up. After the month is up the program checks through Steam if you have a valid subscription and if it does, you're good but if not you'll need to re-subscribe to launch the product.
We totally get that $695 is a tough pill to swallow for some people which is why you've seen a lot of activity around us improving Maya LT for 2015 and offering features that we hope will be of strong value to customers (MEL scripting, Cloud Import/Export, Unfold3D, Modeling Improvements etc etc).
a couple questions, if you dont mind. Is the steam integration in the version of maya LT 2015 I can buy on the autodesk website? Or do I specifically need to buy it from steam to get those features?
also, 30 day trial sounds great compared to the 15 on the maya site, and $695? was this a typo, because I see $795. Thanks! Seeing MEL support makes me happy.
I ended up just going with Modo, I feel the value was much better. Maya LT on steam is interesting though, however I think you are screwing up with this.
Why? $50 a month for just one year is $600. Why would anyone go with that model when the full version can be purchased for $795 and NOT expire.
The appeal of steam is not just that its convenient, but it also provides value. The publisher can charge less with the security in knowing that the steam drm is in place. If going on steam, it makes more sense to push something with greater value.
well the main thing is to me, if I'm interested in a yearly sub, but also the steam integrated tools, there's currently no option for that. Would you guys consider either releasing the dota import tools outside of steam or at least matching the subscription options you have on the website?
then again, it's probably just me, haha. I guess I'm just impatient.
edit: right now I basically see it as, is it worth an extra $200/yr for me to have a maya dota shader (built in) and save a minute when exporting, since I can't sub yearly via steam currently
Maya LT 2015 you can buy via the Autodesk website or via Steam. The Steam version comes with the DOTA2 Workshop tools as an extra add-on for Steam users.
Sorry that was a typo I meant $795.
Certainly if you're doing Workshop only related stuff I totally see the value you're mentioning in Modo:SE @ $149.
For individuals it's probably less of an attraction vs perpetual but for a business to be able to ramp up/down over the course of a project and only pay for seats when necessary we're hearing positive feedback from those people.
I wouldn't really say that the publisher charges less due to DRM since I can buy Stick of Truth at Best Buy for $59.99 or via Steam for the exact same price. The value in Steam at least from the software angle in my opinion is being able to help a lot of people trying to get their games published, their items in workshops or their mods up and running. I'd like to think that we can at least provide some software that would fit those needs within the Steam marketplace.
-s
...Do you have the impression that Steam is where one would go to supply an entire team of people with software?
That's where individuals go to get software for themselves. And more often hobbyists than not, as well.
So, Maya LT, on the final product, not the trial, is it limited when you wanna export your models or not ? Can you go around that limitation and export by chunks ?
Replies
Regardless of the price you put on Maya.
It is a more specialized software that requires probably equal if not more programmers to work on.
So in order to have enough funds to support development and due to smaller user base, the price will be higher.
This must be a rhetorical question. What something is worth is what someone is willing to buy. Maya is so fing good and will get better next year with open subdiv and bifrost. $200 a month isnt much - if you can get decent freelance contracts you should easily cover it
To Adobe's credit, they have released some good stuff in the CC series of apps and I feel I'm getting my subscription value there so far. Bear in mind, this is $50 for ALL of their apps. Autodesk is talking about $200 for a single app. They could at least bundle in Mudbox or something and make it a complete offering for 3D artists.
But hey its fine, if you would rather not compete and push the indies towards your competition, then thats your right. I just dont think you guys understand your market and seem to suffer from heightened self worth syndrome.
OT: Why is it almost a whole $2000 on the price here in Australia? $6055
Accounting for currency difference as well.
Also my 2 cents on the subject, Adobe's CC is what $50 a month, so if i work 38 hours a week at a rate of, hypothetically of course, at $25p/h which is reasonable IMO for an "indie developer" i'm only working 2 hours out of my 152 hour week to pay for the tools i use.
Maya LT on the other hand is a whole $325 (AUS) a month, that's 13 working hours out of 152 just to pay for the tool you use to make money. A whole day and a half! )
Not everyone is Half Brick or Minecraft level of indie developer that can turn millions P.A
But hey charge what you will, people will still buy it.
I'll just sell my kidney and save up to buy it outright.
P.s Its 5am here and i've been awake since 8am the day before, i will not be held responsible for any mistakes in my mathematics
Yes. But the future goal is to also be able to take your ShaderFX graph to the other applications. Without having to bake it down to a CGFX/HLSL file.
After Effects caters to the similarly niche industry of 2D animation and visual effects. Yet it's price is orders of magnitude less. Furthermore I don't know why you guys keep mentioning Photoshop specifically when the price comparisons have been against the entire adobe creative suite.
I dont think its as niche as you make it out to be, a lot has changed over the years, but that wasnt what I was referring to specifically. What I didnt buy was how that reasoning is used within the context of a higher charge for a subscription platform that borderline feels anti-consumer.
Lets face it, how much of the revenue made actually goes right back into R&D? According to a report from 2010, only 10%. What we see as consumers is not research and development, but more acquisition of other software or plug-ins, some go into maya, some dont.
So if one were to buy into the mentality of it being a niche and thus higher cost, then logic would dictate that the user's actually see the added cost go back into the software they rely on. That doesnt seem to be the case. If only a tiny fraction of the revenue made actually goes back into Maya, then its hard to justify paying MORE instead of LESS.
Make sense? I am not surprised at how much the CEO of AD makes, nor do I care really, but if one is pushed to pay more for that supposed niche, then make sure the money spent on all those subs and higher price points actually goes back into the software itself... just common sense.
pricing is high because it is a niche industry or the industry is niche because of the ridiculous pricing ? :poly121:
However, I'm concerned that Maya LT was "cleaned" a little too much and is now a little incomplete in rigging and animation. And I also really hate to see the wrap deformer and wire tool removed which are very useful for modeling as well.
To people who know rigging and animation: How important are those removed features, such as animation layers and spline IK, for low-budget game developers?
Here's the comparison between Maya and Maya LT. Look at the top for the extension features in which they added back a few things.
http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/compare
I appreciate the devs coming to the forums. And I realize they are trying to strike a difficult balance of making Maya LT complete for low-budget indie game devs while still incomplete for the Maya markets(film, high-budget games). But I hope they can do just a little more to make it complete for me, then I'll be very happy to get that annual rental deal soon.
Once mel scripting is possible? does that mean toolboxs such as http://www.froyok.fr/blog/2012-12-frotools-3-2-new-enhanced-ui-and-tools will now be able to be used? aswell as the popular Nightshade UV editor?
:poly122:
Thanks again for the awesome toolbox!
I use my custom toolbar from older Maya, so I could actually use the Mel Scripts, like FroTools, Roadkill, etc. It's a workaround. Yet, my Maya LT only has FBX export, and I need an OBJ exporter in order to make Roadkill work. I was curious about LT, for ShaderFX, Turtle and texture baking, but I am working with a version of LT that Autodesk should be ashamed to offer to anyone, student or not.
Why are there so many crucial functions unavailable in the student version? Why would they remove the viewcube, now I finally got used to the thing ^^? What am I supposed to do with it without updates. The student version of LT is halfway useless, so I recommend for students to get full Maya versions and pray Autodesk releases improved versions of Maya LT to their customers who aren't on subscription, in the future.
Also: Are Autodesk Service Packs incremental, or do I need to download SP1, SP2, SP3, subsequently?
Regardless of the product, maya or adobe suite, the money still comes out of the same wallet. Even if 3D art is a niche industry, all the consumer wants is value for money. As a consumer my opinion is that adobe is offering value for money with thier cloud service and autodesk is not.
I know I wrote part of this before, but the student version of LT is really not nearly as good as the student version of Maya 2014. Somehow a lot of things are not yet working. Subscription LT seems to have been fixed in that regard, but seriously, who would pay subscription, if you can get a permanent license after 4 months for the same price. Obviously you'd want a permantent license for a MayaLT that actually works the way it should, which the current student version does not.
I dont see any reason why not. You may want to look into Shader FX and see if it is what you are looking for. Here is a link to an overview. [ame="
[ame="
That's cool but I'm more asking if you can use substances as materials like you can with normal Maya.
http://mayaltfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/215180-ideas-for-maya-lt-forum/filters/top
Exporting obj's to xnormal and baking within that was far quicker and pain free.:)
Hey igi,
There is OBJ support in Extension 2 and the poly limit has been raised to 65,000. You can also bake inside of maya lt with turtle which is fairly robust. Not sure about cages though, I dont think it uses them
Substance designer is supported in Maya LT 2015
if not are they even going to entertain the idea?
http://mayaltfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/215180-ideas-for-maya-lt-forum/filters/top
They may not - but an equivalent for mudbox could be plausible.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/243580
MODO is on Steam with Dota2 support.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/243580/
This ad was meant to go up today not Saturday
a couple questions, if you dont mind. Is the steam integration in the version of maya LT 2015 I can buy on the autodesk website? Or do I specifically need to buy it from steam to get those features?
also, 30 day trial sounds great compared to the 15 on the maya site, and $695? was this a typo, because I see $795. Thanks! Seeing MEL support makes me happy.
Why? $50 a month for just one year is $600. Why would anyone go with that model when the full version can be purchased for $795 and NOT expire.
The appeal of steam is not just that its convenient, but it also provides value. The publisher can charge less with the security in knowing that the steam drm is in place. If going on steam, it makes more sense to push something with greater value.
then again, it's probably just me, haha. I guess I'm just impatient.
edit: right now I basically see it as, is it worth an extra $200/yr for me to have a maya dota shader (built in) and save a minute when exporting, since I can't sub yearly via steam currently
...Do you have the impression that Steam is where one would go to supply an entire team of people with software?
That's where individuals go to get software for themselves. And more often hobbyists than not, as well.