As much as I love Pixologic, I'm at a loss as to how they make money. Are they gaining THAT many new users every month to keep the ship afloat so well they never have to charge for upgrades?
I think they have a very wealthy founder who's personal vision for how the software should be developed and distributed trumps profitablity. I hear he is willing to sink his personal fortune into the company to keep it that way.
If that is true, you have to wonder how long that will hold up.
Mark - I've heard the deep pockets story as well and I guess if that's the case, great! It's unusual is all. I know people who bought ZBrush when it launched and have never paid a dime for upgrades in all that time. You just don't ever see that. I wonder what the grand plan is ... or if it's just a rich dude who wants to make awesome software available for the betterment of CG. Who knows?!
I will be not surprised if Zbrush 5 will be paid upgrade. And you know... I will pay every cent of it without a word. They deserve this unlike greedy stock-driven bullshit like Autodesk.
I'm one of those people, I bought zBrush over 10 years ago for ~$300 and it's been kept up to date ever since. At this point I feel like I owe them money and I keep expecting one of these updates to be paid but they aren't. I don't know how many business majors they sacrifice yearly to appease the dark lords but it seems to be working, heh.
I think you're right, he's just an awesome guy that loves making awesome software and he happens to have the means to make it happen. I just hope that wherever his money comes from, pixologic is living off of the interest in a sustainable way and that the funding isn't a dwindling resource.
Getting back on track...
1) Animators don't really have something to turn to like modelers can turn to Modo or zBrush, we're pretty much stuck with Maya or Max and all of their ancient, creeky, never going to be updated ways of working. It doesn't help that the animation systems in Max and Maya have needed some hardcore upgrades and they keep ignoring it because they have a captive user base.
2) It takes months after release to get a stable build of the software. They break 3-4 things for every feature they add not to mention they break scripts and plug-ins constantly. So if they plan on forcing everyone to keep up to date they are going to break a lot of production cycles, something they will probably be sued over. They can't break the entire industry for a few months and not pay a price.
it's going to backfire on them horribly. with their proven track record of not only breaking each release of max, but also breaking a whole bunch of the custom plugin functionality that studios rely on for their workflows on each release, i can very much see studios just outright saying something along the lines of:
"fine, we'll keep with the perpetual licenses we already have, and evaluate alternative software for the future when what we have is no longer viable".
they'll do this rather than actively subscribe, and the reason why is pretty straightforward: what they have already works, there's no NEED to update, there are studios still running 2011 or older because there's no NEED to update past that. rather than face potentially crippling updates at inconvenient times during production, studios would probably rather just stick with what they already have until something a LOT better becomes available.
Nobody is moving away from Autodesk products as long as studios keep using them. You have to know the tools that are used in the industry. And regardless of how they treat individual customers, if Autodesk gives studios good bulk discounts then there you have it, you're stuck with them.
about a year after I left broadcast I remember Avid making the big announcement that they were stopping support for Mac. It took them less than a month to backtrack and apologize. It's not like any market is immune to consumer influence ( even if they r the industry standard.. still subscription/ownership option fer media composer ).
There is a history of pipeline disruption between upgrades. I can't imagine that there will not be a grace period between service pack fixes? In which case I would reserve judgement to I add up the final offer.
( still got Mirai... If only I could get it to work in win 7 )
noooooooooo! (Even though I've been a paying 3D studio max subscriber for about 10 months now... still am trying to save up to buy the complete version while doing freelance as I hate monthly charges)
Slightly off topic, I gave the Modo Trial ago and from what i managed to get around to doing i really started to dig it, to the point where i'm contemplating buying a license when i'm cashed up.
I've been wanting to get away from Autodesk for a while now, and this new changed has pushed the envelope.
I was also contemplating writing up a Max/Maya to Modo guide for the community or even a website and documenting, as i go, things that i've had to look up / fix to get it to function the way i'm comfortable inside Max / Maya.
Would anyone be keen on this?
So, when Modo will get non-destructive primitives and proper splines? In 2030?
Than go with Houdini Indie. There is a plenty of Non-Destructive stuff in it that you can latter destruct with a help of its dynamic engine. 200$ a year.
Anyone using Blender could suggest a non-BS tutorial/dvd to get started with it? Something that doesn't go for 60 hours but get to the point quickly and you can learn it in a weekend or so? Cheers!
Anyone using Blender could suggest a non-BS tutorial/dvd to get started with it? Something that doesn't go for 60 hours but get to the point quickly and you can learn it in a weekend or so? Cheers!
Edit:: Hmm, another thing just occurred to me.
If they force everyone to keep with the current software version, that could likely break custom plugins. - designed for specific versions of their software.
yeah, same thing happened with Photoshop. Their abandoning of Flash in panels in favor of HTML5 rendered a bunch of plugins broken and obsolete. They offer both versions of Photoshop for now, but who knows when they stop and only have CC2014.
I imagine that the current versions of software we have won't all of a sudden detonate and go away from our harddrives, you just won't be able to get it again... but that was already the case. Only really impacts new and future users. The licenses atm are fucking expensive, and based on Maya's subscription cost on Steam, I can't see them charging more than $50-100USD a month.
After visiting Autodesk recently, I think this is a very risky move, but a good one non-the-less...
The modeling upgrades Maya will receive in the coming future will be large, but the question I agree adhering to is the stability of those releases for this new business strategy. The backlash we are seeing, is just purely on their track record of not being consistent, and sufficient. I can't say a ton right now, but what seems apparent in speculation is that the "LT" software I think was a test run for those in less of an abundance of financial strength. The upkeep of those two separate branches I think costs them quite a bit, and as I said. It could be just a test run to see how much value they could obtain with the cost of their teams up keeping both releases for different pricing models.
I have no doubt Autodesk is aware of the pricing market as a whole for all industries and how well people who have interest in using their products, are all working at studios with not a lot of financial backing, or as individuals with bills, mortgages, loans, etc. to pay off, and with that. I am certain they are keeping a larger eyebrow raised to its competitors like The Foundry, and definitely Pixologic. As the teasing of many large new features to apps like ZBrush, Modo, etc. Are at lines getting more praise and cheers than that of their own product line.
I don't see myself, or any studio stopping their use of Maya. For 3ds Max, that's debatable, because I know Max users have a passion for that product. Though from the looks of things, I don't foresee a future in 3ds Max, and that's just my opinion looking at how Autodesk has been putting its focus and efforts as of late, and alone noticing how much at GDC has 3rd party products all catering to Maya, and little to practically nothing at all for 3ds Max. From what I've seen, is a lot of what works well in 3ds Max will go into Maya in various ways over the coming time. - Just wanna drop this cool old video we once passed around back in '15 here just to provide my gist to my words above^ https://youtu.be/t5JeIcGzRPg
"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved his Autodesk Subscription to 3dsmax."
sounds like a good opportunity for more agile companies to get a bit of Autodesk's cake. While I agree with the fact that companies need to make money, I think there are different ways to do it. My feeling is that Autodesk is just too big to care about "small guys". Their big corporate clients will just cough up the money and their management will tell production to "deal with it", and that's that.
But then I may be biased. I grew up buying and owning software products. Then shit switched to licensing / EULAS, and now it's cloud based. As a customer you just keep losing more and more control over your software and the tools of your livelihood, which is a worrying trend - the canvas, the paints, the brushes - all borrowed and can be gone at a whim.
people like to bash autodesk for how they're dealing with max and maya this last decade but you need to remember that they're gargantuan programs with 25+ years of legacy which large parts of their userbases depend wholly on. Substantially changing anything is a huge deal and simply demanding features and being frustrated that they can't isn't taking the context into account.
What really needs to happen is new products. Like with Zbrush, which I think is now also getting to that age where it needs an overhaul, I had hoped that Core would actually have been a fresh rewrite from the ground up without any of the baggage, with a new workflow and ui. I imagined they might start afresh there, whilst still maintaining Zbrush 'classic' until the featureset of Core surpassed it and the industry would have moved over. Cos frankly, Zbrush is a mess and could do with a visionary reimagining of how exactly we work with it's great tech.
Never happened though. And probably won't happen on the autodesk side either, or if it does, it wont be done with enough commitment (i.e a flagship product with full money as opposed to say, a typical adobe style experimental shit)
That's the real problem, they're too old and heavy to deal with, but noone has the balls to start afresh outside of silly little experiments. The user base of max and maya are too wide, and the programs are too heavy with interdependent but widely different technologies for drastically different purposes that require different workflows. Zbrush is different, that is just a victim of making it up as you go and working with what you have at the time, but what im saying is that a lot of these programs need full-commitment overhauls. it's not always easy to do in business, but my proposal for ZB Core for example, i think isn't unreasonable and could have been a good choice for them. For autodesk, they just need to get their shit together and stop trying to do behemoth apps and start doing fully-funded, serious, separate applications for different industries with full commitment.
This however isn't really the topic of conversation, it's nothing to do with subscription or not, but I thought I'd rant a bit having read some posts.
actually autodesk did start something new a number of years back - toxik - their compositor intended to replace all other comp apps (flame, combustion, whatever else they had back then). now that did turn out well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk_Toxik
rewrite sounds good on paper but if you consider how many releases these complex apps take to just gain all the expected functionality back (look up the history of XSI or maya - both shipped with their respective predecessors for a number of versions because their initial releases were just too barebones for production) then it's not such a rosy picture. in the case of softimage it cost them pretty much their entire market even. from hero to zero.
at some point your rewrites are bound to introduce cruft again anyway, restarting the cycle.
I am pretty concerned about the direction autodesk is going. The only autodesk product I still use is motionbuilder. It's been fairly stagnant for awhile, it's rather expensive for what it is, and maya has started to getting it's functionality, albeit in the half ass way we have come to expect from autodesk. Considering how poorly human ik, motion retargetting, story mode, new animation layers all work in maya compared to motionbuilder it makes wonder just how bad the core of maya is, and why on earth is autodesk hitching their wagon to that engine.
Meanwhile I'm seeing more and more artist using Blender in actual professional studios. Even some friends of mine have witnessed the open-source software being used for some of it's tools in AAA studios (especially in the modeling department).
Honestly, I don't really care. I never had the intention of ever buying Maya or anything coming from Autodesk. I just use their 3-year student license for personal or demo reel work at home. I only use it in their software in workplaces. If I need to do indie or freelance work, I launch Blender and that's it.
The Subs really are not that bad...I've got access to early version- up to 2014 I believe, and I think you can request earlier versions if needed.
As for being a freelancer, subs are a financial win. With one time purchase software, you can deduct it once. With the subscriptions you have yearly software deduction. You spend what amounts to 5$ a day for a year, that you should be offsetting in your rate, that you can then deduct at the end of the year
It actually makes sense for Zbrush to go sub....I'm surprised they've made any money at all with all the free upgrades. I can' wait to hear the giant whaling and gnashing of teeth when they actually charge for the version 5 upgrade
"As for being a freelancer, subs are a financial win"
Potentially having to waste time juggling between the last two or three supported versions because of new unexpected bugs or performance issues + paying a $200 fee every month without the option to pay-to-own is definitely not a financial win, even after considering the tax writeoff ...
"As for being a freelancer, subs are a financial win"
Potentially having to waste time juggling between the last two or three supported versions because of new unexpected bugs or performance issues + paying a $200 fee every month without the option to pay-to-own is definitely not a financial win, even after considering the tax writeoff ...
I think it is a win for Blender, and my current infatuation Modo though, in a way it really helps you untether yourself to auto-desk in a work environment though, before a perpetual license was bought and owned so you want one you can generally get as most artists on as possible, now if you speak to your employer about something like modo and say well an autodesk subscription is going to cost x over time, and modo costs y and the license is perpetual you could just swing it.
people like to bash autodesk for how they're dealing with max and maya this last decade but you need to remember that they're gargantuan programs with 25+ years of legacy which large parts of their userbases depend wholly on. Substantially changing anything is a huge deal and simply demanding features and being frustrated that they can't isn't taking the context into account.
While there is some truth to that, they also did far less than they could have (speaking mainly from a 3ds max perspective). They constantly syphoned off developers to work on projects that ultimately weren't worth the development time, like people power, or not software specific projects at all, like Stingray, probably even their vision of a tablet operated systems and "the cloud" in general. (Which they are free to do, but they apparently used the very limited resources they set aside for developing their Media and Entertainment cash cow for that.) There are many areas of 3ds max that would benefit considerably from some more development time without making a "core" rewrite necessary. Speaking of which (though of course not "core" core): Nitrous took a while, but turned out to be a great improvement (while other stuff that the subscription owner more or less pre-financed was never delivered). But if I remember correctly, some of the central developers of Nitrous were promptly let go recently , and they were not the only ones. Eddie Perlberg left just a couple of weeks ago as well, when the last releases seemed to bring us some interesting tools despite the obviously limited budget. So while it's certainly true that e. g. 3ds max is a program with a huge backtrack that is a pain to develop for, that doesn't mean that it's a "can't" instead of "won't".
The Subs really are not that bad...I've got access to early version- up to 2014 I believe, and I think you can request earlier versions if needed.
Which should not be limited to subscription, if we are honest.
It's an artificial advantage from the time when they tried to (and succeeded to) phase out upgrades.
As for being a freelancer, subs are a financial win. With one time purchase software, you can deduct it once. With the subscriptions you have yearly software deduction. You spend what amounts to 5$ a day for a year, that you should be offsetting in your rate, that you can then deduct at the end of the year
So you would gladly be paying double of what you used to for the same product? (Or continue to pay about the same for a short while, but trade in your incredibly valuable perpetual license for it?) Sounds awfully like their spiel from the insultingly stupid advertisement spot they launched sometime last year ("Who works 12 times a month!?") The tax thing is a commodity at best (and you can, even usually have to, deduct large purchases over several years in Germany. I can't imagine you don't have the opportunity in other countries as well). But like said, it's a (minor) commodity, especially for smaller shops, certainly not worth several thousands of dollars over the years. And also no one would complain about desktop subscription as an option. Because it's of course a good way to start out as a freelancer if you have limited resources, that much is true.
Not to mention that having you locked in on desktop subscription (aka rental) will give them even less reasons to keep you, the user, happy. Quite the contrary. You will need to pay subscription to be able to even access your files and this is when you will see subscription prices rise as long as it proves to be profitable for Autodesk.
I can' wait to hear the giant whaling and gnashing of teeth when they actually charge for the version 5 upgrade
I for one will GLADLY hand over the money for a version 5 upgrade to Pixologic, looking at the value I got out of a rather modest one time payment for Zbrush over the years. (Actually I would almost prefer it if they took money from their customers more often if that meant that they felt obliged to listen to them a bit more. But then again their approach has given us Zbrush in its current form, so I'm not really complaining.)
Getting more and more used to Blender with time, i can say zero regrets to ditch Autodesk Maya, subscription sucks bloody hell same goes btw for Adobe thank god for AffinityPhoto. I was never the best Autodesk customer but in the end but i rather donate to the Blender Foundation when i feel like it or pay for updates that matter thank you very much.
It's going to take the biggest companies to tell Autodesk this is stupid for them to listen. For example, the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) side is where Autodesk makes most of their money. So if a company like AECOM and their 92,000 to 95,000 employees (for sake of argument we'll just say a third of their total are actual Autodesk product users, so ~32,000) tell Autodesk they refuse to go with this new subscription base, then you may see a change.
I think what will drive companies to either adopt or reject this isn't the price, it's the overall stability of the software. As others have stated, most places are at least a version behind due to it's a royal pain in the asshole to upgrade every year. Especially when the new version breaks things that work in the previous one. If you are forced to always stay current, and what is current is always being broke, then you're going to have some really mad companies coming at you. You get one of the top 5 companies in their stable missing a major deadline because Autodesk can't create a working version for shit and I would love to be in on that next board meeting.
I don't understand why people are tied to Maya and Max since texturing programs do all of the heavy texture lifting, marmoset and the engines can show lighting/shader previews almost instantly and I thought there were dedicated animation programs, such as motion builder, which i thought wasn't owned by Autodesk, but it is. Are there other good quality animation programs?
Anyway, this is why im checking for updates on Zbrush 5.0 all the time, i hope 5.0 offers reason enough to make owning an Autodesk product for the sake of placing points in space a complete waste of money.
I don't understand why people are tied to Maya and Max since texturing programs do all of the heavy texture lifting, marmoset and the engines can show lighting/shader previews almost instantly and I thought there were dedicated animation programs, such as motion builder, which i thought wasn't owned by Autodesk, but it is. Are there other good quality animation programs?
Anyway, this is why im checking for updates on Zbrush 5.0 all the time, i hope 5.0 offers reason enough to make owning an Autodesk product for the sake of placing points in space a complete waste of money.
Was this post really worth raising this thread from the dead? You thought there were dedicated animation programs? And you then smoothly segue into 'Isn't Zbrush neat-o?' I've worked with people who used Zbrush for everything, and I'm not altogether convinced it's equally efficient.
First off, I didn't know the thread was so old when i posted. Not sure how i came across it now actually.
Im not sure exactly what your problem is with my post. Can you go into detail about what pissed you off about it? (not that i care since you were so fucking rude.) They're just my thoughts. Man this forum is hostile sometimes. Yeah, as an animator with a demo reel, i thought there *might* be dedicated animation programs. Several game studios have built their own going way back to im sure before the original Operation Flashpoint, which did have one, so MAYBE, others might have too? Your speaking about current Zbrush, im talking about 5.0. Your probably interpreting my posts wrong, inserting arrogance and ego where there is NONE. ZERO. Hell, i'm so devoid of any self worth or point i had been thinking about say good bye to the world awhile back.
But unless you respond and state clearly what the hell your on about, please don't respond to any of my posts, especially when im asking for help.
"Better posts"? Are you talking about my grammar or spelling, or sentence structure like the other guy? Did i insult someone? Cause harm? Or do you mean don't state opinions counter to those in charge or popular? Did i get court gesture duty and i didn't know it? Give me a clue.
And thanks for reminding me, friendship is completely 100% self-centered act from an individual point of view.
Replies
If that is true, you have to wonder how long that will hold up.
I think you're right, he's just an awesome guy that loves making awesome software and he happens to have the means to make it happen. I just hope that wherever his money comes from, pixologic is living off of the interest in a sustainable way and that the funding isn't a dwindling resource.
Getting back on track...
1) Animators don't really have something to turn to like modelers can turn to Modo or zBrush, we're pretty much stuck with Maya or Max and all of their ancient, creeky, never going to be updated ways of working. It doesn't help that the animation systems in Max and Maya have needed some hardcore upgrades and they keep ignoring it because they have a captive user base.
2) It takes months after release to get a stable build of the software. They break 3-4 things for every feature they add not to mention they break scripts and plug-ins constantly. So if they plan on forcing everyone to keep up to date they are going to break a lot of production cycles, something they will probably be sued over. They can't break the entire industry for a few months and not pay a price.
it's going to backfire on them horribly. with their proven track record of not only breaking each release of max, but also breaking a whole bunch of the custom plugin functionality that studios rely on for their workflows on each release, i can very much see studios just outright saying something along the lines of:
"fine, we'll keep with the perpetual licenses we already have, and evaluate alternative software for the future when what we have is no longer viable".
they'll do this rather than actively subscribe, and the reason why is pretty straightforward: what they have already works, there's no NEED to update, there are studios still running 2011 or older because there's no NEED to update past that. rather than face potentially crippling updates at inconvenient times during production, studios would probably rather just stick with what they already have until something a LOT better becomes available.
big studios with a lot of artists...
they just rent for a show...
after the project is done the let the people go and cancle the lics...
its also working out for freelancer they needs maya for two month a year...
about a year after I left broadcast I remember Avid making the big announcement that they were stopping support for Mac. It took them less than a month to backtrack and apologize. It's not like any market is immune to consumer influence ( even if they r the industry standard.. still subscription/ownership option fer media composer ).
There is a history of pipeline disruption between upgrades. I can't imagine that there will not be a grace period between service pack fixes? In which case I would reserve judgement to I add up the final offer.
( still got Mirai... If only I could get it to work in win 7
Milkshape 3D anyone?
Next day caught wind of them getting rid of upgrade pricing completely.
Now going to subscription model.
Never paying for another Autodesk license ever again.
Slightly off topic, I gave the Modo Trial ago and from what i managed to get around to doing i really started to dig it, to the point where i'm contemplating buying a license when i'm cashed up.
I've been wanting to get away from Autodesk for a while now, and this new changed has pushed the envelope.
I was also contemplating writing up a Max/Maya to Modo guide for the community or even a website and documenting, as i go, things that i've had to look up / fix to get it to function the way i'm comfortable inside Max / Maya.
Would anyone be keen on this?
Than go with Houdini Indie. There is a plenty of Non-Destructive stuff in it that you can latter destruct with a help of its dynamic engine. 200$ a year.
yes, splines suck in Modo. I think somebody will make a third-party plugin in the end like they did for Lightwave.
http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-introduction-for-beginners/
Probably sooner, than we get any meaningful updated to 3ds max
Thanks! And its free!
and
http://www.blenderguru.com/
yeah, same thing happened with Photoshop. Their abandoning of Flash in panels in favor of HTML5 rendered a bunch of plugins broken and obsolete. They offer both versions of Photoshop for now, but who knows when they stop and only have CC2014.
I imagine that the current versions of software we have won't all of a sudden detonate and go away from our harddrives, you just won't be able to get it again... but that was already the case. Only really impacts new and future users. The licenses atm are fucking expensive, and based on Maya's subscription cost on Steam, I can't see them charging more than $50-100USD a month.
I didn't read, did they mention pricing?
The modeling upgrades Maya will receive in the coming future will be large, but the question I agree adhering to is the stability of those releases for this new business strategy. The backlash we are seeing, is just purely on their track record of not being consistent, and sufficient. I can't say a ton right now, but what seems apparent in speculation is that the "LT" software I think was a test run for those in less of an abundance of financial strength. The upkeep of those two separate branches I think costs them quite a bit, and as I said. It could be just a test run to see how much value they could obtain with the cost of their teams up keeping both releases for different pricing models.
I have no doubt Autodesk is aware of the pricing market as a whole for all industries and how well people who have interest in using their products, are all working at studios with not a lot of financial backing, or as individuals with bills, mortgages, loans, etc. to pay off, and with that. I am certain they are keeping a larger eyebrow raised to its competitors like The Foundry, and definitely Pixologic. As the teasing of many large new features to apps like ZBrush, Modo, etc. Are at lines getting more praise and cheers than that of their own product line.
I don't see myself, or any studio stopping their use of Maya. For 3ds Max, that's debatable, because I know Max users have a passion for that product. Though from the looks of things, I don't foresee a future in 3ds Max, and that's just my opinion looking at how Autodesk has been putting its focus and efforts as of late, and alone noticing how much at GDC has 3rd party products all catering to Maya, and little to practically nothing at all for 3ds Max. From what I've seen, is a lot of what works well in 3ds Max will go into Maya in various ways over the coming time.
-
Just wanna drop this cool old video we once passed around back in '15 here just to provide my gist to my words above^
But then I may be biased. I grew up buying and owning software products. Then shit switched to licensing / EULAS, and now it's cloud based. As a customer you just keep losing more and more control over your software and the tools of your livelihood, which is a worrying trend - the canvas, the paints, the brushes - all borrowed and can be gone at a whim.
What really needs to happen is new products. Like with Zbrush, which I think is now also getting to that age where it needs an overhaul, I had hoped that Core would actually have been a fresh rewrite from the ground up without any of the baggage, with a new workflow and ui. I imagined they might start afresh there, whilst still maintaining Zbrush 'classic' until the featureset of Core surpassed it and the industry would have moved over. Cos frankly, Zbrush is a mess and could do with a visionary reimagining of how exactly we work with it's great tech.
Never happened though. And probably won't happen on the autodesk side either, or if it does, it wont be done with enough commitment (i.e a flagship product with full money as opposed to say, a typical adobe style experimental shit)
That's the real problem, they're too old and heavy to deal with, but noone has the balls to start afresh outside of silly little experiments. The user base of max and maya are too wide, and the programs are too heavy with interdependent but widely different technologies for drastically different purposes that require different workflows. Zbrush is different, that is just a victim of making it up as you go and working with what you have at the time, but what im saying is that a lot of these programs need full-commitment overhauls. it's not always easy to do in business, but my proposal for ZB Core for example, i think isn't unreasonable and could have been a good choice for them. For autodesk, they just need to get their shit together and stop trying to do behemoth apps and start doing fully-funded, serious, separate applications for different industries with full commitment.
This however isn't really the topic of conversation, it's nothing to do with subscription or not, but I thought I'd rant a bit having read some posts.
rewrite sounds good on paper but if you consider how many releases these complex apps take to just gain all the expected functionality back (look up the history of XSI or maya - both shipped with their respective predecessors for a number of versions because their initial releases were just too barebones for production) then it's not such a rosy picture. in the case of softimage it cost them pretty much their entire market even. from hero to zero.
at some point your rewrites are bound to introduce cruft again anyway, restarting the cycle.
Honestly, I don't really care. I never had the intention of ever buying Maya or anything coming from Autodesk. I just use their 3-year student license for personal or demo reel work at home. I only use it in their software in workplaces. If I need to do indie or freelance work, I launch Blender and that's it.
Hopefully, ZBrush won't be this way.
As for being a freelancer, subs are a financial win. With one time purchase software, you can deduct it once. With the subscriptions you have yearly software deduction. You spend what amounts to 5$ a day for a year, that you should be offsetting in your rate, that you can then deduct at the end of the year
It actually makes sense for Zbrush to go sub....I'm surprised they've made any money at all with all the free upgrades. I can' wait to hear the giant whaling and gnashing of teeth when they actually charge for the version 5 upgrade
Potentially having to waste time juggling between the last two or three supported versions because of new unexpected bugs or performance issues + paying a $200 fee every month without the option to pay-to-own is definitely not a financial win, even after considering the tax writeoff ...
There are many areas of 3ds max that would benefit considerably from some more development time without making a "core" rewrite necessary. Speaking of which (though of course not "core" core): Nitrous took a while, but turned out to be a great improvement (while other stuff that the subscription owner more or less pre-financed was never delivered). But if I remember correctly, some of the central developers of Nitrous were promptly let go recently , and they were not the only ones.
Eddie Perlberg left just a couple of weeks ago as well, when the last releases seemed to bring us some interesting tools despite the obviously limited budget.
So while it's certainly true that e. g. 3ds max is a program with a huge backtrack that is a pain to develop for, that doesn't mean that it's a "can't" instead of "won't". Which should not be limited to subscription, if we are honest. It's an artificial advantage from the time when they tried to (and succeeded to) phase out upgrades. So you would gladly be paying double of what you used to for the same product? (Or continue to pay about the same for a short while, but trade in your incredibly valuable perpetual license for it?) Sounds awfully like their spiel from the insultingly stupid advertisement spot they launched sometime last year ("Who works 12 times a month!?")
The tax thing is a commodity at best (and you can, even usually have to, deduct large purchases over several years in Germany. I can't imagine you don't have the opportunity in other countries as well). But like said, it's a (minor) commodity, especially for smaller shops, certainly not worth several thousands of dollars over the years. And also no one would complain about desktop subscription as an option. Because it's of course a good way to start out as a freelancer if you have limited resources, that much is true.
Not to mention that having you locked in on desktop subscription (aka rental) will give them even less reasons to keep you, the user, happy. Quite the contrary. You will need to pay subscription to be able to even access your files and this is when you will see subscription prices rise as long as it proves to be profitable for Autodesk.
I for one will GLADLY hand over the money for a version 5 upgrade to Pixologic, looking at the value I got out of a rather modest one time payment for Zbrush over the years.
(Actually I would almost prefer it if they took money from their customers more often if that meant that they felt obliged to listen to them a bit more. But then again their approach has given us Zbrush in its current form, so I'm not really complaining.)
I think what will drive companies to either adopt or reject this isn't the price, it's the overall stability of the software. As others have stated, most places are at least a version behind due to it's a royal pain in the asshole to upgrade every year. Especially when the new version breaks things that work in the previous one. If you are forced to always stay current, and what is current is always being broke, then you're going to have some really mad companies coming at you. You get one of the top 5 companies in their stable missing a major deadline because Autodesk can't create a working version for shit and I would love to be in on that next board meeting.
Anyway, this is why im checking for updates on Zbrush 5.0 all the time, i hope 5.0 offers reason enough to make owning an Autodesk product for the sake of placing points in space a complete waste of money.
You thought there were dedicated animation programs?
And you then smoothly segue into 'Isn't Zbrush neat-o?'
I've worked with people who used Zbrush for everything, and I'm not altogether convinced it's equally efficient.
edit: oh shit, this is the guy who was sad/angry that Polycount emailed him about being lvl3?
Im not sure exactly what your problem is with my post. Can you go into detail about what pissed you off about it? (not that i care since you were so fucking rude.) They're just my thoughts. Man this forum is hostile sometimes. Yeah, as an animator with a demo reel, i thought there *might* be dedicated animation programs. Several game studios have built their own going way back to im sure before the original Operation Flashpoint, which did have one, so MAYBE, others might have too? Your speaking about current Zbrush, im talking about 5.0. Your probably interpreting my posts wrong, inserting arrogance and ego where there is NONE. ZERO. Hell, i'm so devoid of any self worth or point i had been thinking about say good bye to the world awhile back.
But unless you respond and state clearly what the hell your on about, please don't respond to any of my posts, especially when im asking for help.
it gets nicer if you make better posts
i suggest starting here http://polycount.com/categories/3d-art-showcase-critiques
And thanks for reminding me, friendship is completely 100% self-centered act from an individual point of view.