3ds Max Indie to be available “worldwide” from August 7, 2020

I don’t know that studio, but I would see that as possible as well. 100k USD here in Brazil is around 600k Reais. That means you can pay 100k for each artist and still have 200k for machines, rent, internet. I would say that would work perfectly and you would have a salary probably higher than the top studios here pay.

There are a few countries in the east I can point to I don’t know much about south america but like a comment mentioned here, it seems similar.

Take it like this, in X country you can live with 800$ a month this includes your rent and food expenses and electricity as an individual and a few bar visits with friends. If you get paid 1500 USD a month… you can see how this goes. Thats 54,000 USD for three employees per year.

Get Max licenses for three for additional 10K a year for three. Say adobe and zbrush for three another 2 – 5K a year.

that’s roughly now 70K a year.

Company expenses rent and electricity count them 10K a year some areas rent is cheap and power doesn’t go over 60 – 200$ a month depending on what you do.

That’s now 80K a year.

There are tax incentives for less than 100K revenue or profit in some of these countries and you get to pay minimum taxes or none at all. so 100K is very much doable in such cases.

Ideal? Nah far from it but some don’t care 1500 USD in come countries is like 8000 USD in the states. Can it be a step to grow? Possibly yes.

The 10K is a hyperbolic number could include other expenses here and there, I was just taking max amount of potential side expenses.

I disagree about the “cost of living is cheap so its not a a startup” Consider this. I was referring to standard expenses, but these expenses are in no way there to support a family or buy a house under loan or even create a successful company in the future or one that could grow when its barely floating.

There is another case which i’ve noticed happening more often. Its part of the sacrifice that startups make.
Company A is in US but US citizen freelance or partner B decides not to live in US because daily expenses, and so travels to live in the east while still freelancing for same company A, which he or she could partially own but not get full salary or shares. They do this to save on taxes and cash on the side while trying to get projects done and establish a startup company to grow. That is the very definitions of Indie or indie startups, minimum expenses as possible, lots of sacrifices being away from family, just to keep up with expenses until you have established enough contacts and contracts to come back and work from home comfortably. The company will register this person as getting paid minimum salary or not register at all and consider him/her as outsourcing further minimizing those taxes.

Desperate times desperate measures. And Autodesk should know this better, because the bet is not to milk these guys but to help them come home earlier, so when the roosters do come back home they will get those non indie licenses up and running with long term subscriptions because then they would be able to afford it. But if you milk them long and hard enough they will switch to blender and never look back while still overseas :).

what?

2k a year?!

It could be out of europe, north america or even some asian countries, but licenses are not a “concern” in those countries that live with 2k a year.

So it’s not a matter about if I have traveled or not, that reality check you are doing is completely focused into just one part of the planet, while in the part where a lot of production is being done, that’s totally impossible.

this is such a snobbish and insolent question

Nop is not, in fact you are behaving as a snob looking over the shoulder because you think you “know” that in some parts of the planet people live with 2k/year, which is total exploitation.

And not, it’s not insolent, it’s a true reality check question, you say that people is living with 2k/year and at the same time they are paying 2k/year per artist for licenses? ok.

If you want to feel insulted is your problem, even here in spain there is a lot of piracy, and for some of you it seems to be a forbidden topic, not for me, so I’ll repeat the question, are you sure in those countries that pay 2k/year for an artist, they are paying the licenses?

Can you tell me how can they pay for a renderfarm for animation rendering?

Can you tell me how can they pay for the computers itself? (yes, they work with crappy computers I imagine)

The countries you are describing are doing exploitation, do you support that?

That there is people living under the 5.5$/day does not mean that it should be used as an example at all, and again, in those situations people don’t care about the liceses, do you really think that their biggest problem are the licenses? do you really think Autodesk is going or will be going after them?

Do you know a tool that is truly widely used in those countries and that really help them? Blender.

just because others are not doing as well as you moneywise in life does not mean you need to accuse them as criminals and insult them.

And this is pure demagogy, you ask for a reality check but when I check the reality you say I’m calling people “criminal”, no I’m not, I’m asking that because of all the previous reasons, you don’t know if I’m doing financially well or bad, you don’t know my situation and of course you will never know my situation, but I sincerely doubt, as I said many times, that a person that is living with 5.5$/day is worried about licenses, or is even capable of paying the licenses.

So it’s not about them being or not being criminals, it’s about that reality check you are asking for.

1 in 2 people worldwide live under 5.5$ a day. that is just under 2k a year

with 3 employees with an income sub 100k and still make a profit

And they are even making profit out of exploitation, 3 employees, after taxes, insurance, office, energy, machines, licenses, and they still make profit, of course, paying those people 5.5$/day/year, what a great example.

I’m amazed, do you really think that’s a good example? do you really support that? that’s something that should be encouraged?

Amazing.

The fact is that those countries should not be taken as example or as a baseline to judge these things, because in those countries people are being exploited, fix that first and worry about the licenses later.

The fact that someone is in a situation that makes that someone willing to work for free does not mean that is not exploitation.

And what you say it’s true, it’s the reality, but that does not make it a good example or the baseline that should be taken into account, because what you also said, it’s destructive, and not only for those countries, but for everyone, the people exploited will never improve because things “kind of work”, and people in original countries will lower is bar because if they don’t they won’t be able to work.
And when the bar is so low in the original country that people in that country is being hired again then people in the second country will stop getting jobs, then they will have to lower the bar again, and that’s a destructive circle.

The case of students may be taken as an exception to the rule, however I don’t think anyone should work for free for a for-profit company, the salary may be low, but not for free, that’s my opinion.

But the other cases, it’s exploitation, no matter of the exploitation comes from companies in europe or the US, or if it comes from the person hiring those people at that rate, that’s exploitation because it’s the the poverty baseline internationally recognised, approximately those 5.5$/day, that should never be used as an example FOR ANYTHING, it’s exploitation, and I don’t support exploitation, and don’t encourage it at all.

Yearly minimum wage in Brazil is USD 2397 currently. Most who are on minimum wage don’t have access to these tools (most don’t have computers also or really basic ones) or pirate. Now they might consider if they want 10% of that wage for a Max or Maya license and start a new professional path.

But you are very condescending on your remarks. “Fix that first and worry about licenses later” like that is easy. Most countries in South America are f*cked because of Spanish colonialism. How is your country helping those countries improve and advance over centuries of exploration?

I usually don’t see eye to eye with your Blender quest, but now you really talked trash.

Edit: Juang3D, I’m sure you know that countries around the world have their own currencies and not everyone is paid in Euros.

when you got to “Spanish colonialism”

What Spanish colonialism?

I put an spanish example because I’m spaniard and I live in spain, and spain economy is the one I know the most and one of the economies in the worse situation in the eruo-zone or the north america zone.

I don’t see any “spanish colonialism” anywere.

And regarding piracy, precisely what I’m doing is NOT blaming the people living under such circumstances for try to survive in any for they can, not sure if it was understood in the other way around, but that’s not what I tried to explain.

I have not read this:

Most countries in South America are f*cked because of Spanish colonialism.

If you think that way I can do nothing, go ask my president or politicians about this.

I, personally, consider South America countries grown up to solve their own problems, I have family there, I have very dear friends there, and usually if someone comes to tell them they are fucked up because of “spanish colonialism” they tend to answer something not pretty.

That is actually condescending, to consider them as if they were not responsible of their own situations. (which BTW are different depending on the country).

All I can say about this is that they are not “kids playing countries”, and the Spanish times of colonies ended up a long time ago LOL

We can talk about UK colonialism and it’s recent effect on Hong Kong for example, what is doing UK?, or it’s effect on India, what did they do or is doing UK with the caste system? or for the exploitation situation of many people there?, What is doing France for it’s old colonies in Africa? we have past colonies all over the globe, but today’s countries are responsible of themeselves, don’t go asking for more colonialism to fix those problems.

I won’t continue this conversation because I don’t see any reason too, I don’t liek to talk about politics here, or with someone I cannot see face to face, as I said, go ask my president and our politicians, because I dislike all of them.

It’s a long discussion, maybe one to be made over a beer. :]

Yep, I agree with this 🙂

All good! I guess I got sidetracked. Back to the original discussion. 🙂

lets start at the bottom, those countries are technically 50% of the world. that you are completely neglecting and look down upon (again).

i’m from europe myself. in fact the richest country there. and guess what, it was completely unsustainable for me to do make a living there with everything you mentioned even as an individual. but TBH with 100k a year i’d be on top of the world. but i moved and now i’ve been living in developing countries for nearly 10 years. teached young highly motivated young individuals in CGI in countries like indonesia, china, india. so i do know what i’m talking about in those regions. i do not have clients that pay me 10’000$s for jobs in fact i only had 2 jobs in nearly 20 years working in this industry that paid more than 5k. i still bought 3dsmax for 10k which was about 50% of my income at the time. stayed on subscription for about 2 years and then stopped that because the updates where just useless. few years later i get a letter from autodesk telling me that my 3dsmax version is now illegal because i did not update. you know how that feels? you know how much i care about if a kid in china walk through my door having learned on 3dsmax 2011 that he paid for on some illegal software store. (and he does not even speak english, they just learned what the buttons do!!! go try learn a software in chinese… good luck) all those kids are my hero’s learning highly complicated software on a computer we would not even touch. and i’m sorry to say but as much as i love 3dsmax as a software i hate autodesk as a company equally. and the attitude from westerners are sometimes just downright disgusting when it comes to these topics (especially since they basically mean the people i work with, my close friends) and i hate to say but cgpress is def a hotspot when it comes down to these talks.
everyone i ever personally met in this industry learned all the software on illegal versions including me. everyone. who the hell goes to his parents between 16 and 20 asking ones dad for 10’000k to buy 3dsmax to learn it. did you? i think some people forget that this whole industry is probably built on illegal copies floating around. people who then go on and buy it once they make a living from it, or work at studios that bought it. and yea in my case a few years later get told it’s illegal now. so please stop this stupid witch hunt among us artists, is it not enough that we have autodesk lawyers breathing down our neck?

exploitation. is it always? there are obviously huge studios that do take advantage of the situation no doubt. in small studios i don’t see it. in my case the artists usually walk away with the same money i get. i do not even understand how people survive doing what i do in europe. that is why i moved to developing countries to keep doing what i love. some people would call it a sacrifice but i just know what makes me happy. def not sucking up to autodesk licenses in europe.

so yes. it’s very possible to have a studio with multiple employees have licenses and pay employees well and be in the sub 100k where i’ve been over here.
are these computer threadripper 64 cores… no. are these licenses up to date… probably not (def not 3dsamx). do i get to drive a red ferrari… nope. electricity is about same price as in europe over here sometimes. rent can be kept low unless you want western standards. so yes 5 employees are def possible with everything (luxury) you imply.
pushing it lower would be negative examples i’d say (or exploitation). if you work is based on repetitive tasks and you can get away with employing young people straight out of school you could double to 10 and still be in the fair range. top artists usually know their worth wherever they are they deserve to get paid well anyway.

“Can you tell me how can they pay for a renderfarm for animation rendering?” this is actually an interesting point. the short answer is ‘cloud’. i spend a lot of time tuning the final rendersettings to be exactly where they need to be for the job. i also make it very clear to my clients if they want to change things that they signed off before and i need to re-render then they have to pay all those expenses. but yes it’s always a good chunk of the money. i think now that we enter 4k era in rendering the personal renderfarm is dead unless you are are a big enough studio to maintain it. even with amd 64 core systems now.

“Do you know a tool that is truly widely used in those countries and that really help them? Blender.” cannot confirm. atleast not where i’ve been/worked. i think i had two kids that had it on their CV since i’m here. kids still learn the industry standard software. in asia 3dsmax is very widely used. and you can find 10 year old cd’s that are bleached out by the sun on street corners. go autodesk unleash the sharks to the streets of south east asia lol.

“Can you tell me how can they pay for the computers itself? (yes, they work with crappy computers I imagine)” usually very low price systems because it’s all custom built in small shops but the tech stuff is widely available for good prices. many kids walking in don’t even have personal computers. they learned that stuff on community or school systems. unlike the western world there is a huge community of DIY building. like it was 15 years ago in the western world maybe. you’d buy your parts and build your own computer. now it’s a modernized version over the internet where you can build you computer with dropdown menus. also the repair community is much bigger. i had multiple things break down on me from camera lenses to laptops that i would have been unable to repair in the western world (infact had it returned from official repair stores). i had my workstation laptop break in shenzhen china and got it fixed in no time because literally every little part is available on the street markets. where as in the west i would throw the laptop in the trash. writing from that very laptop now several years later. looking at the ‘right to repair’ situation going on in america at the moment makes my hair stand up on the back of my neck.

“do you really think Autodesk is going or will be going after them?” yes they still run around down here. i only know of situations with studios and not individuals. it’s also used as a weapon to mess with your competition. as in sending them to a studio you want to get in trouble or NOT let your so called industry friends know that the sharks are in town. but then again that happened to me in the west as well.

“fix that first and worry about the licenses later.” could not agree more. however fixing the economy of an entire country is a long process and hard. especially if presidents steal billions of dollars. like malaysia… a country eligible for the indie license.

i’m very emotional about this topic since it’s very close to my heart. i cannot talk for studios in the USA and the industry there. my meetings in LA made me run away fast. europe, i see the struggle, since i still have some ties. it’s tough anywhere unless you are lucky to find really well paying clients and they are out there. some of my friends make a great living. but it’s really a small part of this whole industry. looking at the list of countries eligible for a indie license. it’s useless to me unfortunately. and if i buy it from my home country they could still spin it in a legal case since i’m not there. maybe they need a 3rd world license at even lower price to get things going legal in developing countries. doubt ADSK shareholders care then again ADSK stocks are a pretty good investment looking at the chart.

We are talking here about 4 persons!

And the 100k is including any kind of taxes, e3xpenses, and eveerything, it’s gross revenue.

In Spain at least it’s impossible.

The limit if gross revenue, that means before expenses, taxes and eny other thing, it’s not “benefit” it’s “gross revenue”, it includes everything.

So if you charge 1000€ for a project in spain, for example, your gross revenue as a studio would be 1210€, and that’s what matters.

As soon as I find that out I’ll post it here.

So there’s a catch as always with Autodesk and I’m just subscribing to blender cloud today. Time to move on.

It’s the same price converted but the earnings cap is half!!!

I knew there’s always something with Autodesk.