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[Remote Work] Regarding Software purchases/software licenses

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high dynamic range
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Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
Question:

How do you guys go about purchasing commercial-ready licenses for remote freelance work? Do the new Autodesk and Adobe Cloud services work well for this?

Unless people just use cracked / educational licenses / etc. to do such work?

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  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    Unless people just use cracked / educational licenses / etc. to do such work?

    No. Not only does this put yourself at risk but it also puts your client at risk as well, which could result in serious problems for yourself. Educational licenses are non commercial licenses, meaning you can't charge for the work you create on them.

    If you can't afford to purchase the software consider using open source applications.

    That being said rental software is fairly cheap. PS CC is like $10 a month and Maya LT is 35. You should be able to make up the cost within the first day of work.
  • NickGW
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    NickGW polycounter lvl 7
    Unless I'm interpreting their FAQ incorrectly Adobe allows the use of educational and teacher licenses for commercial purposes. Only caveats are it has to be installed on your private owned computer and it the license can't be resold.

    http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/education-faq.html
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    My mistake, you can use Adobe Commercially
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    @Nick - wow, I never knew that!
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Thank the Lord! If I could avoid having to have less overhead, the better. Thank you Adobe. My CS4 license is still viable :).

    So the other real problem is that, as a 3D Character Artist, I'm using 2 - 4 other programs intandem with Maya somewhere along my pipeline (ZBrush Edu license, 3Dcoat, nDo, dDo, Substance Designer, etc). I guess I HAVE to buy commercial versions of those?
  • Brandon.LaFrance
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    Brandon.LaFrance polycount sponsor
    This has been a major reason I'm still using Blender as my main modeling package. Broke down and bought a commercial license for ZBrush, as well as a subscription for Photoshop CC. Would love to pick up Substance Designer as well, but until I start making more money freelancing, I just can't justify it.

    For the time being, I'm happy with Blender, although there are a few things about it that are giving me major headaches. Heavily considering moving to a Maya LT subscription, didn't realize it was down to $35/mo.
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    I hesitate having to relearn a package like Blender, MUCH more so than 3DSmax unless I can find a hand-holding tutorial.
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    Hand holding tutorials. :)http://www.blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials

    I've got an Adobe subscription. For 3D I'd start with Blender and purchase software as you can afford it.
  • Brandon.LaFrance
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    Brandon.LaFrance polycount sponsor
    Totally understand where you're coming from. To be honest, the Maya LT subscription sounds like a great way to go if you wan't to stay legit within a budget. Its also probably much more relevant to professional studios. All other things being equal, Maya LT experience has got to look better than Blender on a resume.

    It wasn't available when I started, so Blender was my go-to whenever I had freelance work. If you want to give it a whirl, this thread has got some pretty solid crash-course videos that should get you up to speed pretty quickly.
  • CapableWizard
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    CapableWizard polycounter lvl 9
    You can use the non-commercial version of Substance if you earn less than $10k a year :)
    As a side note, we decided to allow the use of the Non-Commercial version for people generating less than $10K per year in revenue, so indies or people doing freelancing on the side can use the non-commercial version for their projects for example.

    Link
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    I'm not going crazy by saying that overhead for freelance artists is initially this big? (and consistently so as time goes on?)
  • Dashiva
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    Dashiva triangle
    I'm not going crazy by saying that overhead for freelance artists is initially this big? (and consistently so as time goes on?)

    Yeah. You're really between a rock and a hard place. Autodesk isn't really interested in affordability for freelancers...but Maya LT looks like a decent deal if you animate.

    As an environmental person I find Blender is as good as anything else now for static geometry now that they have fixed the hard/soft edges issue (still waiting on vertex normals) and the FBX exporter is a lot better. I have a Maya LT subscription and still find myself in Blender for environmental stuff because it's just way faster if you know the keys. Maya is actually the weakest link in terms of value, if you have less than a grand to spend the best bang for your buck would probably be Zbrush, Marmoset, and Substance designer/painter and a CC license (but really I cancelled my CC license because I replaced everything with Substance..but more on that below).

    If I was seriously freelancing *right* now I would jump on the PBR / PBS bandwagon and churn out some assets with the leeway that the Substance designer non-commercial license gives you. There are a ton of assets out there that use the older specular/diffuse model but not a lot of the new stuff...I think that this would be a good way to set yourself apart from the crowd. The new CryEngine and UE4 use PBR, for example (along with Unity with plugins) so this might be a good way to leapfrog everyone else with some different skills.
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 12
    its a bad idea, but i've heard of it happening, but i've also heard of smaller team studios who have used pirated software and been caught had to pay and it effectively killed their projects.

    You also run other risks of exposure and company/personal reputation and lose thousands of hours of work, Gamemaker studio had a bug apparently awhile back that would permanently replace all your art assets with pirate symbols and hijack your twitter or something to out you, I think personally thats extreme (as it affected legitimate customers from what I hear to start with) but when its your name, or your studio, you are taking a huge personal risk for you and everyone attached to the project, and your credibility can be called into question over it.

    I need to pick up a few licenses myself but i'm holding off till GDC for some potential discounts
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    So here's the thing, and i'm not sure of the legitimacy although i have no reason to doubt it - A client once told me that they, and Autodesk can find out whether or not you're using a cracked version of their software by reading some kind of metadata within a .max/.ma file. So if a client were ever to ask (and they do) for the .max file instead of a .fbx and you're using a warez version of the software, not only does that potentially put you on a blacklist for future work from that client, but the client also can't legally use that work.

    So yeah, you have to get licensed if you're going freelance.
  • unit187
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    unit187 polycounter lvl 9
    So here's the thing, and i'm not sure of the legitimacy although i have no reason to doubt it - A client once told me that they, and Autodesk can find out whether or not you're using a cracked version of their software by reading some kind of metadata within a .max/.ma file. So if a client were ever to ask (and they do) for the .max file instead of a .fbx and you're using a warez version of the software, not only does that potentially put you on a blacklist for future work from that client, but the client also can't legally use that work.

    So yeah, you have to get licensed if you're going freelance.

    Don't know about .max, but maya files are in fact simple human readable .txt files and I don't really see any metadata in there.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    .max files give you a shit-ton of gibberish/nul data if you open with a text editor.
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 12
    So here's the thing, and i'm not sure of the legitimacy although i have no reason to doubt it - A client once told me that they, and Autodesk can find out whether or not you're using a cracked version of their software by reading some kind of metadata within a .max/.ma file. So if a client were ever to ask (and they do) for the .max file instead of a .fbx and you're using a warez version of the software, not only does that potentially put you on a blacklist for future work from that client, but the client also can't legally use that work.

    So yeah, you have to get licensed if you're going freelance.

    Not to take anything away from that but I severely doubt thats possible, or indeed happening, autodesk may by some chance have a method with the max files but it strikes me as supremely odd a client would have a method that isn't common knowledge, unless of course they had a direct link to autodesk, you never know.

    still for sure best to stay on the safe side.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    yeah like i said, not sure of the legitimacy, but i have no reason to doubt it. and i've had dealings with clients as well who word their contracts very clearly, that if you're found to have illegitimate software that your contract is void and that there could be legal consequences.
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    The point remains the same why chance everything. Reputation, work, money etc? Like I said you can make up the cost of the software within the first day of freelancing if you rent
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Alright.

    As a fresh out of university student, I have not had the opportunity to really count all my costs and income. This is definitely going to be hard as I calculate all the overhead the programs I use to make 3D art cost me.
  • NegevPro
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    NegevPro polycounter lvl 4
    The thing with the metadata is almost certainly true. I'm pretty sure one can circumvent it by simply importing the final .obj or .fbx file into another 3d package like Blender, then from there, exporting it into a new file.

    In terms of selling assets on sites like Turbosquid or the Unity asset store, you wouldn't really have to worry about screwing over the customer. If somebody purchases an asset made with pirated software and gets questioned for it, then all they have to do is show off the receipt and they are off the hook. I'm no legal expert so I can't say what would happen to the seller though.

    From an ethical standpoint, I really don't see anything wrong with software piracy as not everybody is made of money. Of course if you can legitimately own a copy of your software then you'll be better off.

    My team and I spent around $10,000+ on licenses over the course of 2 years. This was a big deal for us considering we were all working for free and the game was also going to be 100% free so we had no profits being generated. As a result of our spending, I decided to pirate some software, after using it for a couple of days I decided that I had to support the dev because of how useful it was for me but between college expenses, bills, and my own project, I didn't have enough spare money to pick up a license. I decided to contact the dev and told him how much I appreciated his work and he actually laughed at the fact that I pirated it and offered me a special, affordable discount.

    This leads to my next point; try contacting software developers to see if they'd be willing to give you some kind of special payment plan. You might get lucky, you might not, but it's worth a shot.

    If I were you though, I'd try giving Blender a shot. A lot of things carry over from each 3D Package and if you are willing to dedicate a few weeks (maybe even less) then I'm sure you can quickly get acquainted with a new, free package. Even if you try it and decide not to stick with it, you are still gaining valuable knowledge on how to use the software and more knowledge never hurts.

    Good luck!
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    I'm sure a majority of people here have used pirated software/non-commerical software at least once. As everyone else here has said, if you can't afford to rent or buy it, use open-source stuff.

    It's a bit of a tight situation to be in, especially as a freelancer. I hope you figure out what to do with the help from the guys here.
  • Dave Jr
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    Dave Jr polycounter lvl 9
    Just to clarify on the fact that files can be openly read by Autodesk to ensure the software is legitimate. However, a classmate of mine from University managed to get a placement and some freelance work at a software company; he worked on 3D for medical videos and a few other big time gigs and informed me that their revision was to model in cracked software i.e. max/maya, export into blender, export back out of blender as OBJ... this is what he was told to do by his supervisor...

    Not that I'm condoning this activity or this process of course, but it apparently worked...
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    I'm curious how much of that metadata sticks around and how often it's removed between applications. We're getting to the point where we could export an obj out of a dozen different pieces of software.
  • RyanB
    its a bad idea, but i've heard of it happening, but i've also heard of smaller team studios who have used pirated software and been caught had to pay and it effectively killed their projects.

    You also run other risks of exposure and company/personal reputation and lose thousands of hours of work, Gamemaker studio had a bug apparently awhile back that would permanently replace all your art assets with pirate symbols and hijack your twitter or something to out you, I think personally thats extreme (as it affected legitimate customers from what I hear to start with) but when its your name, or your studio, you are taking a huge personal risk for you and everyone attached to the project, and your credibility can be called into question over it.

    I got my start in effects thanks to a fellow employee who was caught using pirated plugins. The company had to wipe all of the effects he made from the game. They asked me to re-do all of his stuff and I just kept doing more and more.

    Another company I worked at had a guy who installed a third-party renderer. The company got a call about a week later demanding they pay for a bunch of licenses because he installed it on multiple machines.

    There have been lots of different schemes to screw with pirates. There was a version of Max 3 or 4 that would randomly shift verts every time you opened the file. It didn't totally ruin the file, just made it ugly.

    Max file format is bad to use generally. Haven't done it in a while, but I thought you need a copy of Max to convert from .max format? Most converters would require it to run in the background. Maya's ascii format is much better, especially if you need to fix a corrupted file.
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    yeah like i said, not sure of the legitimacy, but i have no reason to doubt it. and i've had dealings with clients as well who word their contracts very clearly, that if you're found to have illegitimate software that your contract is void and that there could be legal consequences.

    From what i've read and seen inside a .max file - .max files carry session times, computer specifications and non-specific license information which may include the registered license name and or other information, including version & license type.

    My Lecturer caught a few students with some not so blatant pirated/plagurised pieces of work, through the above. He got at least enough proof to remove doubt. What i've actually seen of this myself is minimal though. Maybe a autodesk guy could give us more info?

    I use Edu licenses at the moment as i haven't the money for the full kit but i'm a web dev atm to pay the bills so i only need to get adobe CC.
  • Equanim
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    Equanim polycounter lvl 11
    You could pick up a copy of Maya LT to keep your skills sharp. If a client wants .ma files for deliverables, you could simply rent a commercial Maya or Max license and use that for the duration of the contract.

    If you were selling .ma files over a marketplace, you could do the legwork in LT to build up an asset stock (exported as .fbx and .obj's), then rent a commercial license once every six months or so, import your stock into .ma files, and then sell them. Since at no point would you be using non-commercial licenses, everything you sell is perfectly legal.
  • MeshMagnet
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    MeshMagnet polycounter lvl 9
    Equanim wrote: »
    You could pick up a copy of Maya LT to keep your skills sharp. If a client wants .ma files for deliverables, you could simply rent a commercial Maya or Max license and use that for the duration of the contract.

    If you were selling .ma files over a marketplace, you could do the legwork in LT to build up an asset stock (exported as .fbx and .obj's), then rent a commercial license once every six months or so, import your stock into .ma files, and then sell them. Since at no point would you be using non-commercial licenses, everything you sell is perfectly legal.


    Not that I'm promoting pirated software. But can't you just open the .max or .ma file in a program like notepad or notepad++ and just delete the necessary metadata?
  • Equanim
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    Equanim polycounter lvl 11
    MeshMagnet wrote: »
    Not that I'm promoting pirated software. But can't you just open the .max or .ma file in a program like notepad or notepad++ and just delete the necessary metadata?

    Hard to tell, I've never actually looked at it before. As others have said, Maya's is pretty readable while Max's isn't. If it were a .ma or .max file, since they're proprietary anyway, there shouldn't be a scenario where those files wouldn't have metadata unless they were tampered with. Deleting it could raise the same red flag as falsifying it.
  • MeshMagnet
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    MeshMagnet polycounter lvl 9
    Honestly, I think Autodesk needs to re-think their pricing model at this point. The 90's are over.
    I swear, they'd probably triple their profits if they just made more affordable licenses for freelancers and personal users.
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    MeshMagnet wrote: »
    Honestly, I think Autodesk needs to re-think their pricing model at this point. The 90's are over.
    I swear, they'd probably triple their profits if they just made more affordable licenses for freelancers and personal users.

    so like using maya lt for 90 days and paying $1.15 per day?
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    FYI
    "The Polycount Forum does not condone software piracy"
    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63361
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    FYI
    "The Polycount Forum does not condone software piracy"

    +1
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    so like using maya lt for 90 days and paying $1.15 per day?

    Softimage XSI had right right with a $500 option. Maya LT is $800 and has or at least had poly limits and no MEL or plugin support.
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    Legitimate point about XSI.
    LT has Mel support now and theyve raised the poly limit to 65 thousand.
  • MeshMagnet
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    MeshMagnet polycounter lvl 9
    so like using maya lt for 90 days and paying $1.15 per day?

    Maya LT doesn't allow plugin support.
    Maya LT has a 25k polycount limit.

    With those restrictions, might as well just go with Blender.

    **EDIT Just saw the post above mine. :poly122:
  • MeshMagnet
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    MeshMagnet polycounter lvl 9
    Another question though. Why only Maya LT; is there a Max LT option? Is Autodesk gonna 86 Max like it did it's Softimage?
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    MeshMagnet wrote: »
    Another question though. Why only Maya LT; is there a Max LT option? Is Autodesk gonna 86 Max like it did it's Softimage?

    Not really a relevant thread for debate on this, but Eddie Perlberg has made it abundantly clear publically max isnt going anywhere.
  • Equanim
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    Equanim polycounter lvl 11
    Autodesk is to Maya and 3DS as Fiat is to Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. Rather than kill their competition, they buy it and let it run under their umbrella. Even though 3DS and Maya are both subsidiaries of Autodesk, their teams may as well be in completely separate companies.

    Didn't know about the poly limit increase. You can also export as an .obj now as well. Good on AD for listening to their user base.

    Back on topic, my earlier point was that if you know your needs, do your research, and are willing to do some exporting/importing between packages; you can save a LOT of money in the long run without risking a lawsuit.

    edit: An annual license for LT is $400. Considering you get improvements as soon as they're released and would probably want to upgrade every two years anyway, it's not a bad investment imo.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    Would really like to see Maya and 3dsmax go down to the price range of maya LT, Can't really work with high poly models in Maya LT so the alternatives for most are either going with blender, or going full out zbrush.

    but the reality is that you have to fight for freelance work with the guys that pirate all their software, and most companies won't pay you enough to cover those 4k licenses.
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    I guess I HAVE to buy commercial versions of those?

    Well yeah, duh.
    Thats the price you pay when trying to live off of it. And thats something you have to consider in your hourly rate. There is an investment up front that you need to cover over time and there are follow up costs that will come to you every now and then, new software, updates, whatnot.
    Heck i have full Maya, XSI, Mudbox and Motionbuilder licenses I only use to import and save files with.
    but the reality is that you have to fight for freelance work with the guys that pirate all their software, and most companies won't pay you enough to cover those 4k licenses.

    The truth is also that you have to fight with chinese competition(and as china became so expensive, you compete with half of southeast asia, eastern europe and so on) and at least the studios you are competing against have their licenses, but that doesn't change anything at all. Cracking software and earning money with it, is illegal. If you try to compete with cheap ass service you already have lost, your costs of living are higher than in these countries, you can't be on eyelevel with them at that sector.
    And your clients should know that, but it's not always about the price - service, communication, you beeing where they are, those are your strong sides.

    that said i also would not mind paying less for the software i use, or i have to use thanks to our clients.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Yeah I'm in no way saying it's ok, just wish there were better alternatives, as you said I wouldn't mind said softwares getting cheaper.

    but for me the future feels like it's going for a blender, zbrush workflow, as most of my work is mostly zbrush based anyway.
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    Yeah I'm in no way saying it's ok, just wish there were better alternatives, as you said I wouldn't mind said softwares getting cheaper.

    but for me the future feels like it's going for a blender, zbrush workflow, as most of my work is mostly zbrush based anyway.

    i have yet to find one client that would accept blender data or objs as final output.
    In the end even if they allow whatever for the modelling it's most likely that we have to deliver .ma or .max files.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    yeah, I know there are services that can do that for you but yeah it's not optimal

    In my case I do a lot of sculpt work with bakes in xnormal, and the textures they fix themselves with substance etc, then usually they are ok with the obj plus zbrush files.
  • sheckee
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    sheckee polycounter lvl 9
    yeah like i said, not sure of the legitimacy, but i have no reason to doubt it. and i've had dealings with clients as well who word their contracts very clearly, that if you're found to have illegitimate software that your contract is void and that there could be legal consequences.

    I heard the same from my tutor when I was at University. He'd been working with Maya / in the industry for a very long time. So I have no reason to doubt what he was saying, from what I understood; there is a method to see whether legitimate software was used.
  • mats effect
    I know for a fact that 3DS Max will even track if someone opens a max file made with a edu licence with a commercial licence. It pops up to remind you its not ok to use the file for paid work.
  • Higuy
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    Higuy polycounter lvl 9
    What if you were building things in an EDU license for max and then wanted to take your game commercial and ended up buying a commercial license? Would it be okay to use the old files from the EDU, or do you need to remake them all? (sounds kinda silly...)
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    may sound silly, but it's kinda like investing in something, but if it doesn't go your way you take back all your money, not really how the world works, "sadly"
  • dzibarik
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    dzibarik polycounter lvl 10
    Since Autodesk offers rental options I don't see a problem here. Just rent the software until the end of a project. I mean it's only 195$ per month and you'll make much more than that.
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    yup for onsite artists or interns we will switch to that for the next projects, makes much more sense than investing 5k upfront
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