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To buy now, or wait? (Maya)

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Anthony polycounter lvl 2
Hello folks, I need some advice.

I've been a 3ds max user for about 8 years now, all that time i've been using educational licenses (though I paid about £2000 when i got my first one, that was back in the days before the free student licenses), and i've recently decided to switch to a commercial version of Maya.

With upgrade pricing being discontinued in January next year, and perpetual licenses getting phased out over the next two years, i'll only be getting a perpetual license once, can't afford subscription on a continual basis indefinitely, and AD don't allow continued use of licenses after subscriptions end (rentals anyway), which rules out me going the subscription route.

I've got two questions here, I already asked one of them in the technical talk section couple of days ago, but got no response (probably because i didn't word it right), so here's my first one:

Should I get a license for Maya 2015 now, or wait until 2016 is released? (which could be the last perpetual version, but we won't know until they announce it)

And here is my second question, the one i asked the other day:

Should i just get a copy of maya on it's own, or go for the standard M/E Creation Suite?

I know some of you reading this will think to yourself "Why doesn't he just go for Modo or Blender?" and i'll answer that now. I've tried to use blender a few times, over that last few years, each time, i got very frustrated, very quickly, its pipeline integration also breaks a lot (the downside of it being opensource), and as for Modo, looking at their licensing Q&A, the procedure for transferring stand-alone licenses from one machine to another (for a system upgrade for example) seems...lengthy, compared to AD.

Replies

  • Ben Apuna
    Anthony wrote: »
    ... and as for Modo, looking at their licensing Q&A, the procedure for transferring stand-alone licenses from one machine to another (for a system upgrade for example) seems...lengthy, compared to AD.

    I never had any issues with Modo licensing, it was really easy IIRC.

    I would be weary of purchasing a perpetual license of Maya knowing that AD will be phasing them out. They likely won't support reactivating your license in the future making a system upgrade very difficult to do.

    Personally I and the place I used to work at had nothing but pain from Autodesk licensing.
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 3
    Houdni Indie is 199$ for a year. Just saying.

    And they got two XSI devs in the team, who adds some nice animation capabilities (animation layers) and UX experience in new version.
  • Anthony
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    Anthony polycounter lvl 2
    Well, I'd be pissed if I spent nearly 4k on maya, only for them to turn off the license servers a year from now. If they did, my only other option on the AD side would be Maya LT, which at the moment, is still lacking a few things that it really shouldn't.

    And i'm not gonna touch Houdini Indie, since it's purely subscription-based.

    So, should I even bother with Maya, (it just seems to be what everyone is using these days, doubt that'll last though) or should i look into Cinema or Modo?
  • MagicSugar
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    MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
    Anthony wrote: »
    as for Modo, looking at their licensing Q&A, the procedure for transferring stand-alone licenses from one machine to another (for a system upgrade for example) seems...lengthy, compared to AD.

    Not so. I've installed Modo on multiple laptops con-currently with no issues (I just don't run them at the same time). I've had factory resets that required fresh install, still no problems. You can also run Modo as a slave on another box if you require network rendering.
  • Zack Maxwell
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    Zack Maxwell interpolator
    mantragora wrote: »
    Houdni Indie is 199$ for a year. Just saying.

    And they got two XSI devs in the team, who adds some nice animation capabilities (animation layers) and UX experience in new version.
    Everything I've seen says that Houdini is VERY heavily focused on film, specifically.
    I haven't seen anything from the company itself promoting it in any way as part of a game asset pipeline, and it doesn't seem to be very popular among users in that area either.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    I'd really recommend that you take another look at Modo. The license is fair, it's not a subscription, the bugs are manageable, it's cross-platform, the renderer is really nice and easy to use compared to Mental Ray, the sculpting tools are serviceable and include proper multiresolution, and while it doesn't have the handy built-in compositor or modifier stack that Blender does, you'll be quite able to find ways around that in your pipeline in the majority of cases. You'll also have to work around the lack of an exported tangent space for it and there's no Cryengine plugin for it, but neither of those are particularly show-stopping since you can get maps that sync to the vast majority of tangent spaces these days between Xnormal and Handplane. Overall it's a really solid choice these days, regardless of what Autodesk is or isn't doing.
  • MagicSugar
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    MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
    And...re: Modo...a Modo asset store is in the works (store site not live yet). It's gimpy right now in the sense that it's targeted to 2D stock users (you'll need to use Colorway plug-in) but I'm hoping they'll expand it.
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 3
    Grimwolf wrote: »
    Everything I've seen says that Houdini is VERY heavily focused on film, specifically.

    Then you must have no internet connection where you live because => http://lmgtfy.com/?q=houdini+engine+unity
    or => http://lmgtfy.com/?q=houdini+game+development

    And UE4 integration is in the works too.
    Grimwolf wrote: »
    I haven't seen anything from the company itself promoting it in any way as part of a game asset pipeline, and it doesn't seem to be very popular among users in that area either.

    http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1590&Itemid=337
    https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2926&Itemid=68
    https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2208&Itemid=68
    https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2923&Itemid=68
  • Anthony
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    Anthony polycounter lvl 2
    Hm, well, i've seen some videos of Modo over the last few months, and i really like the look of Meshfusion, and what it can do (the boolean operations seem to be very clean). The main thing thats really stopped me from jumping to modo so far is the part in their FAQs about license transfers, say, if i upgraded my system with a new motherboard, ram, cpu and new main drive (and use my current one as internal backup), according to their licensing FAQ, i'd have to fill out a form and send it to them.

    And Modo's rigging system doesn't seem as, robust, as maya's, i'm not a rigger by any stretch, it's just that i've really liked the look of maya's new Voxel binding method, it seems really fast and clean.

    And as for cry engine, i'm not using that, I have UE4.

    Well, I suppose i could get Maya now, upgrade my system next year (if i need to), and IF they turn off the license servers (can't see why they would), i'll just keep using it as long as i can, and in the event i do need to switch, then i'll jump to modo,
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    You mean this FAQ? That's the licensing system for every Foundry product that's not Modo. You would only have to go through that with Mari, Nuke, Hiero, etc. etc. Modo still uses the licensing system from the old Luxology days.

    Also if you're not a rigger, I'm puzzled as to why you're concerned about the rigging system... I've seen some pretty nice rigs in Modo, though I'm not a rigger myself either.
  • Anthony
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    Anthony polycounter lvl 2
    Yes, that's the FAQ i was referring to.

    Oh...so Modo at least is still using the old system...(though i think they're moving everything over eventually), and I don't really need Mari, as i've got the Substance Indie pack, and Painter will eventually support 8K res textures (16k is on their roadmap)

    And as for the rigging thing, yes, i don't have much experience with that, but i have thought a few times about giving it a try, though animation is not my strong point.
  • soulty
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    Autodesk charges that much for licenses because they can. It is the industry standard and it has been the industry standard. It's what everyone in the industry knows and what companies have been writing their in house scripts and plugins for. It's not just the gaming industry either. Autodesk products are the standard for many different industries.
  • Anthony
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    Anthony polycounter lvl 2
    True, even The Foundry won't keep Modo affordable indefinitely, I remember few years back, Modo was only about £700 or so, now its 1k, I'm expecting that to double in the next few years, if they don't eventually follow Adobe's and (what will be) AD's example, and go sub only.

    I actually wouldn't mind paying the desktop sub for full Maya if i knew for a fact that i could comfortably make back at least twice that sum per month, and if the sub price was more reasonable, like say, 25$, instead of 120$, though apparently, that will be coming down once they get rid of perpetual licenses (or was it the upgrades that bit referred to) LT, as it stands is a joke as far as indie goes, sure it's affordable, but they removed the wrong scripting language. And then there's the matter of them locking you out of the software if the payments stop, why can't AD follow Epic's example? Let poeple keep using the software if the payments stop, and just disallow updates. Simple.

    That aside, I am starting to look into Modo now, and wondering if Marvelous Designer might be worth a look :P
  • soulty
  • Zack Maxwell
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