ZBRUSH - All new updates to require Maxon subscription
polycount lvl 666
So it finally happened, no more free updates. Version 2022.0.5 will be the last release for perpetual license holders.
So it finally happened, no more free updates. Version 2022.0.5 will be the last release for perpetual license holders.
Replies
As expected. Question is what kind of meaningful improvements to the existing software could they possibly conjure up to lure us into updating.
If you use the software for sculpting then it hasn't exactly had a must-have update in a long time, has it?
at that price point, were you to cancel an annual 3dsmax subscription you'd still be up $1,305.60/year.
On the Maxon site the ZBrush subscription seems to be $359 annually. They also sent out an e-mail offering 50% off for perpetual license holders, valid until August 5th.
Also, another word of caution : if one is a user of an older version of Zbrush (for instance because of dependencies on brushes and plugins, or even just as a matter of preference), Maxon support will not provide authorization for a reinstall and will force one to upgrade to the last non-sub version, which is 2022.05. So for instance, the installation file for 4r7p3 is not available anymore, and the authorization server doesn't run anymore either.
In my opinion this is pretty much the beginning of the end of the Zbrush era, especially with many new artists going straight to Blender for sculpting.
Yeah, I agree. Best to prepare for paying the subs or start using/learning an alternative.
Dam bought it this year lmao, luckily for me I don't do more than dynameshing hard surface and basic sculpting.
@killnpc I know its not for every country but Maya Indie is only 30$ per month.
fortunately I can now do reasonable work with Blender , so probably won't bother, current version of z will suffice for ever. :)
whoa, very good to know, thx for pointing that out. definitely is something i'd want to know and share.
Wait what?
So unless I buy at least one permanent license upgrade from Maxon to get into their ecosystem I won't be able to activate ZBrush any more in the future? Or does this mean I can still use the lastest Pixologic version I own and "only" not activate any earlier versions?
Hello,
Well, the upgrade to Maxon 2022 (permanent) from an older version comes for free. It is done through their license conversion process. The page states that it converts to 2021, but it is actually 2022.
The very annoying thing imho is that it puts anyone currently using an older version in the precarious situation of knowing that if they ever need to upgrade their workstation in a way that requires a reinstall, then they'll be forced to upgrade (even if for free). Which means potentially losing access to plugins, like Zswitcher for instance, or being unable to provide files saved as an older format if a client ever needs it.
Not to mention the fact that users of these older versions have never been warned about all this in the first place. This alone is imho unacceptable.
Outside of the fact the the upgrade is free, I would say that you are correct in the sense that yes, one indeed has to get into the Maxon server/ecosystem at least once in order to be able to activate again in the future. So to your last point : you can keep using the latest Pixologic version you own, but only if you don't attempt to reinstall it.
You have to play the game anyways. Your clients will use the latest Zbrush version sooner or later.
Of course ! But that's besides the point here. The point is that unlike other companies (like ... Adobe !), Maxon locks people who've purchased something out of using it. So the game to play here is, imho, to vote with ones wallet.
But the silver lining is that things will even out naturally anyways. The top rows of Zbrushcentral and Blenderartists have been pretty much undistinguishable for a while now...
Also, [Crystal ball on] : similarly to how a consensus developed around FBX 2013 as a good stable version for file exchange thanks to UE4.x relying on it (at least for UE-based projects ...), I am willing to bet that the 2022.0.5 flavor of ZTLs is going to become the de facto standard version for Zbrush file exchange (assuming that newer versions of the software can still save out such files of course. Can they ?). Either that, or someone will develop some clever way of going around all this. After all .OBJ is still a valid way to exchange sculpt files anyways since all major sculpting programs can reconstruct subdiv levels. And .ZPR never brought anything valuable to the table ... Overall I believe Maxon is underestimating the bad press that comes with a forced subscription model. [Crystal ball off] !
Installed the latest ZBrush 2022.0.5 to my new PC not a long ago (last month). I'm more than fine with the features it offers. Don't have any cravings for any new "fancy" features either. Hopefully I don't need a re-install anytime soon then.
@pior I agree, the .obj workaround is rudimentary, but super robust. Especially if "converting" the newer ZBrush' .ztl to older ZBrush. Reconstructing sub-d levels is an amazing feature. Even Blender's multiresolution modifier does that perfectly nowadays. If deciding to continue sculpting in Blender, for example.
@FourtyNights : from what I gather from my interaction with support it should be possible to reinstall 2022.0.5 at any time as both the installer package and the authorization system are being maintained. It is earlier versions that are impossible to legally setup at this time. But of course nothing prevents them from ditching this 2022.0.5 perpetual paradigm in the future too ...
One thing for certain : having the installer backed up for any earlier version will not help, as it wont go through authorization after reinstallation.
For full disclosure here is the exact wording :
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"I'm sorry but that is not possible. The ZBrush 4.x activation system no longer exists.
Are you asking because you have a 32-bit computer? If so, you will need to upgrade your machine before you will be able to use ZBrush again.
If you do have a 64-bit machine, then please use My Licenses to upgrade your license. This will give you ZBrush 2022, which is the current version and the final free upgrade that we will make available. That is the only version that we are supporting for legacy users (those who purchased prior to us joining Maxon).
If you have a different reason, please let us know so that we can attempt to help you resolve the issue. "
Is reconstructing sculpt levels really giving you a 100% identical end result? I imagine the sculpt will shift and change a bit due to precision issues. That is if it even works - I recall many a time I tried the reconstruction simply did not work for reasons unknown even on full quad meshes.
And you are going to lose sculpt layers, probably vertex colors, have to reorder and assemble all the subtools, ... I don't think that is a dependable solution if you are exchanging production models. They're not always that clean or simple. Rather the opposite. ;)
Also the ztl format isn't backwards compatible at all, is it? Every new major version uses a format that the previous ones cannot parse. That's how I remember it from my days of trading Zbrush files at least. Plus you get a warning when loading ztl's written in an older version. Or did they add functionality now to save out older formats? At least I can't spot anything like that in 2021.7.1 which is what's installed over here.
"Or did they add functionality now to save out older formats? At least I can't spot anything like that in 2021.7.1"
That would be my question too. I feel like they will have no choice but to add this functionality to ensure compatibility with 2022.0.5, which is the version that many will stick to. The file format changing all the time in the past was annoying but acceptable since the update was always free ; now they just painted themselves into a corner ... but I don't think they are realizing it just yet.
If anything, the only people who are going to be penalized are the ones always jumping to the latest, priciest/sub version since it brings no advantages and only adds more potential for issues.
No one would ever pass on hiring a fantastic modeler just because they wish to keep using a slightly older version of the program anyways, since the workarounds to convert the files are really not that much of a hassle (even if not always 100% seamless and might require some elbow grease as rightfully pointed above).
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By the way, the price for a perpetual Zbrush license (ie the cheapest option) at this time according to the Maxon store page is 946.80 Euros ; whereas the last price listed on the legacy Pixologic store page was 895USD. Make of that what you will ...
Even as someone who dislikes the new system I still have to remind that there still is a perpetual licensing model which is based upon yearly maintenance upgrade cycles. And knowing Maxon probably a cutoff version for half-price updates of maybe 4 years (?) or so.
I will also stay on my latest version as long as possible as I mostly try to use Blender in my own workflow anyways. But a perpetual license model still does exist. It's just the very drastic jump from "never ask for anything for an update" to "now buy for a lot of money or make a subscription" is something I don't like, either. I understand why developers like the subscription model and I like how companies like subscription models for a different reason.
But in general ... yeah I dislike subscription as the enforced method, too. :-/
Piracy is your friend
Is there still a perpetual? I've had three or four emails from them by now, all mentioning subscription, special offers I should definitely not miss out on and something called Maxon One. Being pi**ed off as I am about the change I did not check any further. But going by their emails theres only one way forward. Perpetual every few years would be great of course. The Zbrush free-updates situation while cheap ;) was always a bit of a head-scratcher.
Anyway, like you I've adopted Blender for most of my sculpting needs. It's more practical to have a sculpting toolset within the main 3D app, saves a lot of back and forth and data loss and good enough for most situations. Not the skin-pore-detail one though. Nor will it be useful for freelancers trading files with their studio clients.
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Understood, unfortunately it seems like many will go in that direction, the same thing happened with 3Ds Max's subscription model when they forced upgrades and refused to activate licenses for older versions.
While the subscription model does make business sense, I wish that pixologic would have stayed out of it or sold to Epic Games which would have maintained its free update model and done so much more with the tool (such as direct integration with unreal engine)
If you nose about the net a bit you can see people using Blender are making very impressive work with the sculpting tools. I love zBrush and have been using it for a long time. I have also instructed people in the use of both apps for sculpting. Blender knocked me out of my sox and I hadn't expected the ease of use when sculpting. Sure there is stuff Blender cant do, but that isn't stuff I need.
If I can't get zB (2021 or 2022) to install on a new machine in the future, then I will bid it a sad farewell. I don't think I am the only one.
Yes there is: https://www.maxon.net/de/buy/perpetual
They are pushing subscription because it's more lucrative and better to have a steady income stream but Maxon so far has luckily always kept offering perpetual and service plans (meaning: one year upgrades) in their lineup. And in the lines at the very very bottom of these promo emails they also mention that perpetual is going to stay. The price increase from before to now is just ... not nice.
So for me Maxon are still way better than Adobe and Marvellous. I fear for the day when Substance Painter and Designer Indie will vanish from Steam as well. And I hope until then there is at least a semi-good contender in the Open Source field
Personally, I think Pixologic's ultimate powermove would have been to go fully Open Source and adopt a donation model like Blender. With where they are now that would have been an extremely strong signal towards Open Source in the industry. If all the users of OSS would actually just donate a little or a fraction of the commercial counterpart those projects would probably see a lot more increase in development and interest as well. Just look at how much Blender took off not only with 2.8 but especially after the waves the 3 Million USD Epic Megagrant donation made.
The thing I love about any Open source project the most is that it can never really go away. No time you spend on Open Source software will ever be really lost because it can't be taken from the market. It can become outdated or develop in a weird direction (as can commercial software) but it will never go away from one day to another.
@motionblur I see, sounds alright then! Perpetual is key to me to not end up locked out of work files at some point, even if on paper a worse deal than subscriptions. Will probably go with that if/when an up-to-date Zbrush becomes essential for my work again.
Going open source might not have been an option for them depending on how much of the tech behind the app is the developer's own property. With these big and established apps there's usually a lot of third-party dependencies and potential rights issues. Blender being originally based on some left-field inhouse 3D package of a long defunct studio might have not had these constraints.
Also, probably a lot of work setting this up when all you might be after is a payday and a ride into the sunset. ;) I know what I'd pick given the choice.
not sure what you are talking about, but my 3dsmax 2011 still runs perfectly fine.
the free updates for zbrush never have been sustainable, i wished they would have started charging for them earlier. It lead to zbrush catering to a more and more casual crowd, ignoring long lasting bugs for many comfort features nobody in production really needs. Or versions like Zbrush Core Mini...
at one point the market is saturated, you can not broaden it forever. charging for updates is just common sense. unless you do something like blender, go open source and have enough streams of money to stay free.
This. I really wished they would have just started charging small fees for updates like ... every year or so. Given how many users they must have that could still have been a significant thing for the company. While the free updates were of course always apreciated I also wondered how they were doing it while still remaining profitable enough to keep the company running.
It's why my secret wish would have been Open Sourcing. But I totally understand that for this step you need a lot of idealism and a strong mental constitution as the future is nowhere as certain as under the umbrella of a well maintained large company.
Also as thomasp mentioned: there may have been certain aspects of external licenses that are very difficult to sort out of the source code. I always had the impression, though, that Pixologic tried to keep most parts of ZBrush as internal development. Maybe except for the bundeled plugins.
It's this,
like if you already have it installed and activated you're good, but there is no way to buy an older perpetual license and activate it even if you found a copy.
Pixoligic + epic (unreal engine) would have been a better fit.
Not really sure what Maxon can bring to zbrush considering what it's done with cinema 4D
oh wow thats new, i guess next time i need to install on a new machine i will have to do the switch to blender...
Say good-by to your edit-poly modifier and say hello to everything else!
I only use edit poly to make sure smoothed meshes export as quads, that one will not be missed :p
Maybe they like pain or just dig their own grave I cant remember any meaningful addition to last 5 versions of zbrush Even if they steal any interesting looking feature from other programs that will cover only few updates plus Blender is getting better by the day if you are not old user there is no point of actually using zbrush Only real reason I can think of is if you want to make 100 mil poly sculpts with endless subtools
BTW I am still having trouble transiting from maya/zbrush to blender so if there is any good resource to help me let me know [is there way to make zoom work like zbrush ? ]
I've been considering this addon, if I happen to switch to Blender's sculpting in near future:
The great thing with Blender's addons is, that you can always turn them off per workspace, so that this navigation isn't in global use for regular modeling or anything else, but just for a specific sculpting workspace/tab.
The cut-off used to be Max 2010 for a good while and what they officially say and what they do when you reach out to them is still two different things, so it's still worth a try. Currently, it might be 5 versions back officially (not really following that anymore since 2022 is my last version for the time being) but they already prolonged their schedule once because of Covid, so if anyone needed any proof they were lying about their reasons...
On a more general note, it's probably not legal for a developer/vendor to refuse to activate a perpetual license in the EU, no matter what the EULA might say, and if they pretend they aren't able to or allowed circumstances to arise that made them unable to provide activation, a licence holder should have the right to take any measures necessary to put the software into a usable state. You'll want to clear that up with a lawyer fist, though.
"On a more general note, it's probably not legal for a developer/vendor to refuse to activate a perpetual license in the EU, no matter what the EULA might say, and if they pretend they aren't able to or allowed circumstances to arise that made them unable to provide activation, a licence holder should have the right to take any measures necessary to put the software into a usable state. You'll want to clear that up with a lawyer fist, though."
I cleared that up with a lawyer due to Autodesk refusing to activate my perpetual second hand max 2009 license. Due to European law, once sold its mine and i have the right to use it as i have a proof of purchase. Autodesk obviously strong armed me and my lawyer was like " If you sue, you will win, but are you willing to spend money and time on this ?" my answer was no, but now i am on a weird place where i HAVE to pirate my copy because the vendor doesnt allow me to use it legally due to their TOS that violate EU law, but i am now also not breaking the law with piracy laws.
Have they refused to transfer the license in the first place or was that done in the past, including activation, and now you simply tried to reactivate?
Either way, it does indeed sound like you'd be in the right, and while Autodesk apparently refuses to cooperate and banks on people shying away from a lawsuit, it would be stupid of them to sue and risk getting their ass handed to them by the courts as well (even if most of the damage has already been done).
they didnt refund anything, they just told me that since it was a resold perpetual license, due to their TOS they couldnt activate it\legalize it. Hence why i contacted a lawyer that specializes in EU law and thats what he told me. There is a precedent by Oracle that also legitimizes what i wanted to do and have the right to do so. But since i have no time\money to pursue a multimillion dollar company for a 13 years old software i said fuckit xD
I remember when Zbrush "killed" Sculptris finally.
They removed Sculptris Alpha 6 from their website, and rebranded the name "sculptris" to a set of new brushes within Zbrush.
When they did that, already felt that something is wrong.
Apparently it's still possible to activate/deactivate and install Zbrush to another machine as usual. I bought my ZB license back in 2019, so I'm entitled to use it via Pixologic's account. I got my new work-laptop, so thank god:
https://support.maxon.net/hc/en-us/articles/4716072098972-How-do-eligible-ZBrush-customers-download-the-upgrade-
@FourtyNights : True, but only to an extent as was pointed out by the OP and earlier posts. If one wishes to install a specific version prior to 2022, then Pixologic/Maxxon refuses to activate it - but instead they do offer a (somewhat forced) update to the last Pixologic+Maxxon version which is 2022.
Of course this sounds good in an ideal world, but it is problematic for anyone specifically needing a given version (for instance because of a production pipeline built around it, or a reliance on legacy plugins like Zswitcher). I believe this is especially problematic in the case of Zbrush because of their track record of new versions introducing bugs and slowdowns.
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On a similar note : I have recently been in the position of reinstalling Mudbox for some occasional needs. I do own a perpetual license of version 2012 paid in full back then (even with a few paid upgrades before that). Autodesk now considers it depreciated and the support agent flat out refused to activate it claiming that it is impossible for them to do, and that my only option was to get on the subscription train without any compensation on their part - basically considering the cost of the paid perpetual license as money thrown out of the window.
It took about a month of back and forth with support to finally get the issue escalated Karen-style, and all of a sudden the support rep decided to grant the request, activating my serial+activation request code manually. Meaning that (as one may have guessed) there is no actual technical restriction on their side, as even though the automatic activation server may be down the manual "over-the-phone" style activation is still perfectly possible. Thus showing that the forced move to subscription has no basis whatsoever.
The irony is that I would have been somewhat content with being granted an un-expired sub instead. But because of their stubbornness I now have some evidence that at least some older versions of Autodesk products can be activated just fine even past their pseudo end of support time. So if you own an older but reliable version of an AD product and wish to activate it, a request for manual activation might be worth trying (especially since this means having less satellite launcher/updater apps to deal with).
@pior Oh, right. Didn't thought about it from that point of view. A valid point. ZB is very strict, and completely blocks, even simple .ztl files from opening in earlier versions. Project files (.zpr) is more understandable, since they save a lot more information such as UI, than ztools.
don't really care, will use my current licence, then switch to blender , but TBH I don't really use zbrush that ,mucn any more, went back to sub d stuff or low poly
Isnt blender sculpting polygon based?
That's not even in the same ballpark. In terms of sculpting that's like 2D vs 3D.
I think 3D coat also has real voxel sculpting
Btw if you think about buying a subscription, check out the C4D license in maxon one.
C4D Volume builder has completely reinvented high-poly creation for me, its a complete game changer and very easy to use and learn. Not a replacement for sculpts but a much more technical way to create highpolies which might fit 3D artists better with less of a traditional art / painting background. You also get ZRemesher and a great auto unwrap / adaptive remesher. Secret tip right there.
is it time to switch/learn blender? anyone know of any good blender only artists to stalk on artstation?
Shrike: Isnt blender sculpting polygon based? That's not even in the same ballpark. In terms of sculpting that's like 2D vs 3D.
Actually sculpting in a 3D app is,.... well 3D. Depending on what you are using it for 3D programs have certain advantages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvyqOAXMZI
No actually its a very big difference if you are just pushing polygon surfaces around based on a thin surface or having an actual volumetric voxel grid which can get holes and cut in any shape. Its like using clay vs shaping a tin can. Or like a voxel terrain vs a normal terrain.
Havent used the blender one but in one video you had to manually remesh the polygons but other videos show real volume, dunno
I distinctly remember tho facing the hard roadblocks of polygon based sculpting and Zbrush being the only sculpting tool having real volume, but its been some time since then, it is really like an extra dimension
HI there @Shrike - if anything I would say that Zbrush is the most "2d-esque" of them all, given that it doesn't have traditional perspective and if I understand correctly performance seems mostly driven by how much geo is being affected directly under the brush. It somehow feels more like a 2.5D canvas being constantly reprojected in 3D - something that is especially noticeable with the clay strip brush for instance. It also has serious issues with rotating/panning/zooming around dense models, but for some reason Zbrush artists don't seem to care much about the slow performance when doing that. And as far as I am aware It doesn't have any notion of voxels in the 3DCoat sense.
Blender sculpting doesn't operate in voxels either (outside of one of its remeshing options) - and as a matter of fact I really wish it had the option to, as its slicing tool is really slow compared to the way 3DC does this stuff effortlessly. FWIW the Blender sculpting behavior is really quite close to that of Mudbox. Overall its biggest weaknesses imho are the lack of a well-behaving flatten brush and the aforementioned very slow slicing. The instant remeshing with the very easily tweakable grid size is fantastic though. Unfortunately Dyntopo seems to have taken a performance hit compared to pre-2.8 though. That's unfortunate as it was really quite a unique and interesting paradigm.
I certainly wish there was a more reliable Blender<>3DCoat bridge available.
Best i can do:
Interface review & 2 & 3 & 4 (no particular order)
That is a start. I have yet to do much in Blender, some issue i read about 6months back or more when 2.93 was available for blender, i heard "meta" was getting involved or something and i just took 2.93 and all the add-ons and refrained from updating because of something i read in regard to the "changes" or industry "big-wigs" immediately getting involved more with blender, like hornets swarming to where the herd was moving because of all these forces subscription models. (i.e.) if they swarm it i look for alternatives that are not main stream, anytime they gravitate towards that i leave that also. Just mentioning the blender change situation much like these spoken of in the thread, atm i am to lazy to look into where i read about these changes to blender or whatever it was that made me not want to update it past 2.92/or/3, i'll do with out any new changes.
@ iam717 not sure I get your point. Sounds a bit convoluted. I've been using 3 since the redesign and had pretty much no problems with it. Ive been on an open source kick for the last 10 years. The only paid software I use is Marmoset (zBrush) and some music apps and plugs. Blender and zBrush both have great user bases that have a strong online presence. Im not conscious of your meaning, but I would like folks to know that Blender is stable and fine to use, as is zBrush.