Petition to keep perpetual licensing at Autodesk
polycounter lvl 12
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.
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.
Replies
* 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?"
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.
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.
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?
https://code.blender.org/2017/03/eevee-roadmap/
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.
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.
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?
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 ; )
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.http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088212799/recommended/401090/
Regarding Modo, its definitely making inroads into the game dev. Just hope Foundry doesn't turn into another Autodesk at some point.
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?
- 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.
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! >; [
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.