Adobe eyes £200m bid for British visual effects firm The Foundry
quad damage
Adobe eyes £200m bid for British visual effects firm The Foundry
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/privateequity/11562472/Adobe-eyes-200m-bid-for-British-visual-effects-firm-The-Foundry.html
Poof into the cloud they go
Nuke
Modo
Mari
Katana
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/privateequity/11562472/Adobe-eyes-200m-bid-for-British-visual-effects-firm-The-Foundry.html
Poof into the cloud they go
Nuke
Modo
Mari
Katana
Replies
Not owning permanent licenses sucks but at least with the adobe cloud it's cheap. Autodesks pricing is another story entirely.
Let’s hope Adobe aren’t buying it as a strip it down and destroy it exercise to make more people use After Effects!
Maybe this might make fusion get more popular in future…?
Blackmagic Design Announces Fusion 8 will be available on Mac OS X and Linux
=>Really needs to get on the ball and learn Blender.
We don't need less variety.
MARI+Photoshop may become a powerful pair tho.
Adobe getting into 3D is the only thing I can think of that might force Autodesk to improve its pricing model.
That said, I could also see this backfiring horribly.
As someone who uses Photoshop and Modo every day, I couldn't disagree more.
I absolutely hate the way Adobe's products have completely stagnated over the past decade, and there's nothing I can imagine that could be worse for the film and game industries than having Adobe and Autodesk vying for control of the market. Monopolies are a terrible thing for consumers and industry professionals, and the only way that the industry can stay healthy is by keeping competition alive and healthy.
What else have I missed?
Oh man, in this case, adobe better get rid of after effects, it's a good software but becomes totally obsolete in front of NukeX...
AFX usually is better for smaller projects, allows you to work faster with its layered structure. And it is go-to software package for motion design.
Nuke is excellent when it comes to bigger, much complex projects, especially compositing for movies.
But I'd much rather have adobe buy the foundry than autodesk for sure. And with the exposure Modo would get if it was included in the adobe subscription, it would find it's way into more studio pipelines and become a serious contender within no time.
I'mma gonna just quote this sentence any time i'm talking about nuke to anyone ever. Top Class reporting.
I agree adobe have earned their reputation for being innovation-averse, which is the exact opposite of the foundry, a merger would worry me.
Much better id have thought to get into bed with Side FX Software. the foundry portfolio would be really bolstered by a simulation and fx solution, and could then provide a legitimate alternative to autodesk.
Yeah, this ^^
If they added MODO to the Creative Cloud subscription, that would increase MODO's install base many times over. Lots of game studios provide that to their artists already. If MODO was in there, you'd see more people trying it and starting to use it.
That will lead to more game specific features being added and ... I just don't get the hate for this.
Adobe doesn't have a modeling app at the moment. MODO would be a first class citizen in their product line. That would be nothing but good for MODO users.
Autodesk buying them would be a disaster. Adobe? I say bring it on.
But that's really only because Photoshop currently comes in a photography package that is only $10 a month. IIRC photoshop CS6 was $700 for a permanent license, meaning at the current subscription price you'd have to subscribe for nearly 6 years to get to spend the equivalent amount of money on it.
That's a pretty good deal to me.
Problem is AFAIK that's the only Adobe product you can get for that cheap. All the other individual licenses are $20 a month which isn't nearly as good.
Yeah those are my thoughts.
This is mainly about pricing for me now. If they keep Modo the same price or reduce it. I'll be happy. Autodesk would probably make you sell a kidney to get it.
Sounds great on the surface. The problem is that Adobe's products have barely changed in the past decade.
Aside from hardware acceleration (which actually doesn't work on a lot of computers and can lead to massive bugs), Photoshop CC's feature list is nearly identical to CS2. The features they've added on in that time, such as 3D support and better tools for cloning and blending, have mostly been half-baked and have not received meaningful updates in years.
This is largely true of their other products as well, and that does not bode well for any companies and products that Adobe buys. Adobe's business model is essentially "Let people keep paying for Photoshop because there's no better all-encompassing alternative." So why would I want them to have control over the modeling software that I use every day if they're most likely going to simply sit on it like they do Photoshop and the rest of their products?
http://cgpress.org/archives/the-foundry-acquires-developers-of-mischief-drawing-and-painting-application.html
This is how I see it, but its totally made up
1, Bill Collis wants to go and enjoy life and who can blame him, £200 million thank you very much! not bad for a company started in London in 2007.
2, Its damage limitation for Adobe.
3, £200 million is peanuts for Adobe so they could just asset strip the software just like Autodesk did with XSI.
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLNPSSth1IE[/ame]
A subscription model with stagnated development all in the cloud? No thank you.
Maybe it's not true and won't happen.
My impressions are that the software has changed from being feature driven to being far more solid and stable software with more attention to detail on making the software as robust as possible.
Ever since Photoshop has gone CC they have fixed so many little things. A lot of improvements have happened with all the various cases for merging items for example.
Honestly I prefer how adobe has been developing things and focusing on stable platforms now than what it used to be.
Just out of curiosity... What more do you want photoshop to do?
last time I checked there was no real time symmetry out of the box.
not meaning to troll here, but 2007 was when Foundry merged with Nuke, they'd been going as a plugin vendor since 1996. But yeah, he's earneda a shot at smelling the roses.
regarding Mischief: here's where i'm hoping you prove me wrong, but mishchief is a far far cry from a photoshop killer. it's a very simple sketchpad built on interesting tech. a quick summary of the haves and have nots:
no curve tools
no photoshop brushes
no layer blending
no adjustments or filters
no canvas positioning
no paintbrush stamps or stencils
now, i've fallen in love with mischief, especially the way it lets you just get on with sketching, wihtouth havign to keep tabs on your pixel resolution, or canvas edges,
it really is the nicest solution for digital sketching i've found.
But a photoshop killer it is sadly not, though i live in hope.
Oh my GOD, this. I can't believe it doesn't have that yet.
I just got Modo a few months ago, I'd hate to have to turn my back on it because it went subscription only. The only software I ever subscribed for was UE4, and that's only because i knew i could keep using it if I had to stop the payments for any reason, Adobe and Autodesk don't give that option, so i will never support them.
It would be better for Pixologic to buy the Foundry, they at least know how to develop their software, and actually listen to their customers. The free upgrades would also be a bonus. :P
Tbh, I would treat it like CS6. Keep it around but give the big ol middle finger to the CC, then just migrate to something like Blender when the last perpetual version gets stale.
Some people, like myself, are just ideologically opposed to the subscription model and its pretty obvious Modo under something like Adobe wouldnt have a cheap sub.
- Wraparound mode for tilable textures like Krita has
- Replicate strokes across multiple images like Substance Painter and 3D Coat
- Paint across UV seams in 2D
- Support for multiple layer masks without having to put the layer in two or three groups
- More convenient UI for sharing data between PSDs and options for automatically packing linked smart object dependencies
- Native RNM normal map combining as a blending mode
- Get rid of restrictions on 32-bit floating point images
- Image warping filter that allows you to "look around" equirectangular skyboxes
- Animation tools could probably be way less fiddly
- Allow more in-depth hotkey customization, for the love of God
- Custom mipmap filtering support (sharpen/blur/cubemap convolution, etc)
- Perhaps the brush engine could use a refresh. Clip Studio's feels way better to me and Krita's has more flexibility
- Reduce dependence on case-sensitive file systems and release it on Linux
- Get rid of step back/step forward and have a normal undo like a normal program, and make it so that undo doesn't switch between layers when it shouldn't
That's just what I thought up in five minutes, and I'm sure there's something I forgot. Point is, there are definitely lots of improvements that could be made to Photoshop for texture art.
Oh man, you should see the pages and pages of discussion (and misunderstandings !) on the Adobe forums about that one. Fortunately enough there is a little script available to fix it - I think it was mentioned here :
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1251964
I don't have that hang up. If it's reasonable, I'm in.
Well the only reason I say that is whats the alternative at this point? Slim pickings on the DCC package front. You guys did donate about $10,000 to help them improve the fbx import/export. So if this becomes a bit more normal, it does generate a sort of appeal/confidence.
It will still take a lot to keep me from using Modo though, and if hypothetically 901 is the "last" perpetual version, like CS6 it will still be viable for quite some time.
Everyone's different, reasonable is subjective to varying degrees. I don't see much incentive given to develop when everything is sub based. With paid upgrades, at least the developer has incentive to do more to get you as a consumer to pay for it.
But since one has to buy the actual license first, that would be 1.799$ = 149,92$/Month for the first year of your subscription.
Based on that I would say that as long as the subscription was around 50$/Month, it would be a pretty good deal.
Now Adobe currently charges 49$/month for the entire CC bundle, or 19$/Month for a single application. Assuming that they don't increase the prizing model because of Modo/Nuke (which would upset alot of customers), having Modo as part of the CC would be an amazing deal, almost too good to be true.
Also, the Modo userbase would probably tenfold instantly because of all the existing CC subscribers, and become a serious contender to Max/Maya overnight.
I would be perfectly happy subbing to Creative Cloud, if Adobe had a licensing model similar to what Epic used to have for Unreal 4; You got to keep using the software if you stop payments, you just loose access to automatic upgrades.
Or better yet, something like what Algorithmic have done; a "rent to own" model, where, after a set number of payments, you own the software permanently, as if you'd paid full price upfront.
Here's just hoping that Adobe DOES NOT buy the Foundry
You've communicated my sentiment much more articulately than I ever could have. If it weren't for the CC subscription, I would be unable to afford the software it offers, and in spite of what some might claim, for my purposes there is no cheap package out there that works near the level of Photoshop, or Illustrator.
I don't know how quickly Modo's market share is growing, but I don't think it can be said to truly compete with Autodesk's offerings, since it has such a small user base.
Modo in CC could theoretically cause a user-base explosion, and drastically reduce the risk required for studios to switch packages.
I do agree w/Anthony though. I'd really like to see rent-to-own, or a UE4 style model adopted by Adobe.
While I agree that such math makes subscription models look good, I think I am with Anthony here. The idea of being locked into a subscription model without a rent-to-own option is pretty dangerous from a budgeting standpoint, even if the fees are quite cheap individually.
Now I suppose that it doesn't look too bad to people willing to pay monthly fees for things like Netflix, Spotify or cable TV ; but for those who like to eliminate every unnecessary expense (like freelancers with fluctuating income), having to pay monthly fees for software which tend to become less stable with each release can be a tough pill to swallow, even if just for the principle of it. After witnessing Photoshop becoming less responsive between CS5, CS6 and the original CC, I certainly don't feel confortable with Adobe getting their hands on a product like Modo.
That being said, Modo being placed in the hands of more people could indeed be a great thing, especially since the program is rather easy to pick up. However, who knows what would happen to the dev team. Tough call.
Still - more cooks in the kitchen and more upper management to deal with usually means slower development, therefore I can understand the more pessimistic opinions about a possible Adobe takeover. Going from niche to mainstream is not always the greatest thing ...
Sorry if this is true! :poly127: You could be right, Mrs Ashley Armstrong, M&A Reporter for the Telegraph could be just trolling the CG community. There are no sources in that report and if you read some of what she says it does make you question her research?
-According to who?
-Don't forget the "trainers" and yeah, no one needs to draw anything in 2D anymore when you use Modo :poly136:
This, especially for Adobe CC. I'd prefer to buy the old cs6 and OWN the software instead of always renting it...