Autodesk reports third quarter results
Nov 30, 2016 by CGP Staff
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Autodesk has reported the financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, disclosing numbers of its transition to a rental-only model. The report states an increase of 168,000 of what the company calls “subscriptions” from the second quarter to 861,000, and a decrease of 34,000 of “maintenance subscriptions” (from older users of the software). According to Studio Daily, Autodesk’s CEO has mentioned that the company plans to converge the two models, seeking ways to persuade customers with maintenance plans to transition to the new model.
What is not measured in the report is the notable boost Autodesk’s move to a rental model has given to competing CG software, and the accelerated growth of their user base (as is the case with Blender and Houdini, among others), which can be readily perceived through artists’ comments that have been long time users of Autodesk software, as well as through the related amount of content, videos, tutorials, films and VFX productions surfacing in the past year. If the trend continues, this could have noticeable consequences on the market share of Autodesk’s 3D/CG software. It must be noted, however, that the later is a small source of revenue for Autodesk, so the company could perhaps be looking to gain a more important increase in revenue in other markets.
More on Businesswire.
What is not measured in the report is the notable boost Autodesk’s move to a rental model has given to competing CG software, and the accelerated growth of their user base (as is the case with Blender and Houdini, among others), which can be readily perceived through artists’ comments that have been long time users of Autodesk software, as well as through the related amount of content, videos, tutorials, films and VFX productions surfacing in the past year. If the trend continues, this could have noticeable consequences on the market share of Autodesk’s 3D/CG software. It must be noted, however, that the later is a small source of revenue for Autodesk, so the company could perhaps be looking to gain a more important increase in revenue in other markets.
More on Businesswire.
Not a massive surprise, I suggested they might jack up the price of maintenance subs to match rental, or only allow further upgrades if you changed to a rental system.
That will be me completely done with AD, and frankly will be a relief not to worry about Bass’ latest stupid wheeze to screw their customers.
Autodesk are working hard to make sure every indie artist on earth don’t use their soft and go with Blender and Houdini instead. That’s exactly what I’m kind of forced to do myself and I must say Blender is a really surprising software beating 3ds Max in many, many corners. Houdini is long to learn but it’s the best 3D software ever made. So the future is not so bright for max and maybe even maya.
I made the move to Houdini and are so happy I did.
Yes, it’s a steep learning curve but you will get there in the end.
It’s changing the way you think about how to approach your work, once you git it, the learning is much easier. It’s the 3D package with no limitations on what you want to create. Truly awesome! The new version they are working on will make it even easier to cross over. Start now I would say, do a tutorial a week so when the day comes when you’re fed up with Autodesk draining your bank account for little or no real improvements, it will be easier to cross over.
Same here, I also made the move to houdini and it was the best decision I ever made. We even invested in a houdini FX licence besides many max licenses. And we think about introducing houdini more and more.
Jon
Oh, puh-lease!
“Blender is a really surprising software beating 3ds Max in many, many corners”?
Blender has a decent (albeit basic) set of features, but its overcrowded UI lacks flexibility and tight integration.
Blender has some handy addons and is starting to see some “premium” addons, but Blender has nothing on 3ds Max’s wealth of third-party support and plugins–with full documentation (something Blender addons often lack).
And while Blender’s modeling has its advantages, and modeling can indeed be done faster in Blender, I’d kill for cutting-edge features like Geodesic Voxel skinning and complete FBX support (instead of Blender’s semi-complete FBX).
There’s a reason why pretty much no one uses Blender for, say, game development–save for largely amateur hobbyists and unpolished indie developers.
And don’t get me started on Blender’s development goals. They focus more on pleasing amateurs, than take feedback from industry professionals.
“Houdini is long to learn but it’s the best 3D software ever made”?
Houdini’s only useful for procedural 3D animation and special effects. But nobody in industry really regarded Maya or Max for that aspect, to begin with. Industry use Houdini for technical procedural-generation strengths–and pretty much just the Technical Artists use it.
Autodesk products are bloated and their rate of development congested, but let’s be real here: Maya and 3ds Max aren’t moving any time soon as the standards for most of animation, visual FX, arch-viz, and game dev.
Even MODO’s not even close to becoming “the” new standard yet, and I’d say that MODO’s seeing wider industry adoption than Blender or and more relevancy to more kinds of 3D artists than Houdini.
I meant to say “procedural 3D animation and PARTICLE effects”
Your thoughts on Blender…
They are simply not true and based on assumptoins and the lack of a deep knowledge of the software, what you call a basic toolset, it´s far more advanced in Blender than in Max or Maya for, lets say modeling, the same for the animation and/or rigging tools, the render part is also astonishing and you can have Vray or Corona if you want, but the integrated render engine is far better than the engines that comes with Max or Maya (with the exception of Arnold) the weakest spot is the particles and simulation stuff, but for this you have Houdini or Real Flow 10 at a very reasonable price.
The GUI may seem overcrowdedto you, it can be improved for sure, but once you know it is good, and there are tons of toolsets that Max simply does not have, Grease Pencil, sculpt and animation sculpt, different linds of Bones, etc… check this video and tell me you can reproduce it in Max:
https://vimeo.com/190801903
Cheers.
On the contrary, fine sir–I have deep experience with Blender. I’ve been a user since 2.4x, back shortly before the Peach Open Movie era.
I’ve also since become a 3D professional in the industry, working for companies like NCSOFT and Obsidian Entertainment for 6 years. We don’t use Blender. We can’t.
• Blender is NOT more advanced in modeling than 3ds Max or Maya. It’s comparable, in basic respects, because Blender has all the basic modeling tools (Extrude, Inset, Bevel, etc.), but there’s no Object Paint feature (unless you buy Asset Sketcher from Blender Market, which still isn’t as good).
Blender also lacks in a complete NURBS modeling toolset, failing to ever implement “NURBANA” proposed years ago. Only recently has Carve development been introduced in Blender, so it’s (finally) improved to make Boolean results cleaner and rather comparable to Maya and Max. But I haven’t waited for it. Just as I couldn’t wait for Blender to finally add n-gon support, only just a few years ago.
• You’re wrong if you think Blender as the same level of animation and rigging tools as Maya and Max.
Both Max and Maya have far better viewport options, with industry-standard PBR support and interactive animation support. They have next-gen options for deformation and skinning, like Delta Mush, dual quaternion, geodesic voxel, etc.
Maya’s ART for UE4 and 3ds Max’s CAT are dedicated rigging toolsets. Blender has no such toolset, nor integration with third-party software.
• Cycles is decent, but you’re not experienced enough if you think it’s complete or comparable to other solutions. Cycles is a basic raytracer.
Cycles gets the job done in many respects (plenty for a hobbyist’s needs), but there’s a big reason why third-party solutions like V-Ray, Maxwell, and Arnold are professional industry standards: They’re complete.
Cycle lacks robust features like firefly removal (Light Portals is a workaround) and advanced lighting options. There are no use of proxies like in V-Ray, and caustics suffer in Cycles compared to most other renderers.
The light quality is also less in some regard, because whereas a renderer like Maxwell and V-Ray offer real-world-based simulation of light phenomena, Cycles uses an entirely-approximate lighting model. You see this difference in how it handles radiosity, reflections, GI, and bounced lighting effects like glow.
Cycles is generally better than mental ray, for the most part. But nobody in industry uses mental ray. They use V-Ray, Arnold, or Maxwell–and neither of those options work the best with Blender. V-Ray for Blender lags behind V-Ray for other 3D packages.
• Houdini isn’t really a 3D package so much as it is a solution for procedural-based particles and simulation effects. People use it along side 3D packages like Max and Maya.
Though, even Max/Maya plugins like FumeFX see standard use, too. Maya incorporated Naiad to create Bifrost. And RealFlow has plugins for integration within 3D packages like Max and Maya, similar to the way Vue and SpeedTree can work within other applications.
Blender has never and likely will never see this kind of integrated third-party support, because nobody likes Blender’s license (or its amateur community who generally panic at the sight of dollar signs).
• As a longtime user of Blender, I already know how to use its interface. Problem is, this interface was ALWAYS meant to be a temporary fix. It was introduced in Blender 2.5x and was supposed to be improved during Blender 2.6x.
We’re now at Blender 2.8x soon, and Blender’s UI is still as inflexible and non-customizable as ever. They keep tacking on new tabs and toolbars, but none of it is efficiently integrated. It’s the result of ad-hoc development.
This is what happens with non-industry priorities get placed as top priority with Blender’s development. There’s not enough actual major industry experience among Blender’s developers or its users to provide experience and feedback to govern development priorities.
• I’m fully aware of Grease Pencil, Blender’s sculpt tools, the new Bendy Bones, etc. These are neat, but not essential. Only amateurs get excited about these things.
Grease Pencil is advanced in Blender compared to Maya’s rudimentary grease pencil, but most 3D artists don’t need Grease Pencil for anything significant.
Blender’s sculpt tools (like Dyntopo) is neat, but absolutely useless, since Blender has a totally-useless Remesh modifier, and most 3D professionals just use ZBrush anyways.
Bendy Bones are quite amazing, but it’s not new. MODO’s had this feature for a few years now. And most animation studios have a Tools team who often create in-house tools from scratch. Nobody but small indie studios will look at Bendy Bones as a reason to adopt Blender.
* * *
I get your enthusiasm, but it’s obvious you lack industry experience. Like most Blender users, your perspective is based on a fandom, simply because you’ve no other experience to know just how lacking (and unused) Blender is.
A few minor uses aside, nobody in major industry relies on Blender. It’s gained some nods here and there, but only “indie” developers, small-time freelancers, and minor small companies, hail Blender as your FOSS messiah.
For a decade now, all I’ve heard from Blender fans is how much it’ll be adopted by industry. I’m working for the industry now and I can assure you that it’s far from true. Blender isn’t useless and it’s decent in many respects. But its biggest proponents are homegrown fans–not the industry or most freelancing professionals.
I do still keep Blender around, for some modeling and other minor tasks. I still like Blender. But it’s basically a toy. 3D industry is constantly evolving, and Blender’s constantly lagging behind. It’s useful, but not ideal.
Yes… my lack of experience… except I run a studio for more than 10 years now, I have a deep knowledge in Max, Maya, Blender and good (not deep) knwoledge of Houdini, deep knowledge in ObjectiveC, C#, Java, Javascript, deep knowledge in Unity and good knowledge of Unreal (migrating to it all of our projects), specialized in Render/Lighting, animation direction, tool development and some more things, I don’t want to bore you with my CV…
Let’s review your points:
Modeling: do you really use Object Paint? A buggy feature that don’t work as expected many many times in max? Well, in blender you can use an addon such as Grease Scatter Objects, just check it.
NURBS? Nurbs in max are BAD, Nurbs in Maya are outdated, and not useful, for Nurbs you have different types of softwares that don’t even call NURBS to the NURBS, but don’t tell me that the Max Nurbs are ok, maybe Maya, but mot MAX, we don’t use NURBS and I don’t know anyone who use NURBS, maybe parametric modeling from CAD programs like Inventor, Fusion or Solidworks, but you receive that as STP or STL.
On the other side, Blender has a good remesher, even if you think it’s not, it saved the day a lot of times, it can be better, like Zremesher, yes, but what remesher do you say Max or Maya have?
Open SubDiv are superbly implemented in Blender, and it’s a recent addition to Max, Alembic has a neat implementation that is as new as Max’s one, but the modeling yoolset like the modeling time booleans are awesome and saved us tons of time.
-Animation: I understand you are not an animator, because if you were an animator you won’t be talking about Maya and Max tools such CAT with good words, a clumky buggy system that fails a lot, lacks implementation and has been the same for the last… 6 years or so? i can’t remember because it has been a lot of time since it’s been renewed.
Bones in max? i hope you are kidding me, Max bonesis the same implementation that was programmed for Max 4 by a former Maya programmer, Bones in Maya… great, Human IK, is good, far better than CAT, but is not widely used, Maya’s riggers use to love bines instrad of a premade Rig, Bones in Blender, great, may not be the best bones of the market, but they have some pretty good features, ok, you have Bendy bones in Modo, but do you have them in Max or Maya? Because I can’t afford having every single package in the market because one or two features… specially if it comes with some kind of legal spyware or if you hav to give them permission to investigate your computers whenever they want.
What does PBR have to do with animation? Most of animators want full performance, hence visual quality is deactivated, but in any case, it’s being implemented right now and with pretty good results.
Delta Mush: you have delta mush in Blender, I don’t remember if it’s an addon or if it’s already in trunk, but you have it, search for it.
Dual Quaternion: you had this in Blender long before it reached Max
Geodesic Voxel Binding: great tool, it’s not present, I hope it will make it’s way some day
Etc.: specify please
Cycles:
True, it’s not complete, hence you have Corona or Vray, I already said that, but regarding noise removal and firefly removal, the first is pretty advanced right now, not in trunk yet, but I think it will rech trunk in 2.8 but.. it’s blender! You can use it if you need it!
The second one, I think that is already solved like in any other path tracer.
You asumption about light quality… well, Vray is a biased render engine, really approximated, but it has some semi-unbiased methods and even some fully unbiased, slow but unbiased, Maxwell is synonim of slowness, Cycles use a similar approximation model as Corona, Maxwell or Vray in it’s unbiased methods, different but similar techniques, so the “light quality” is something you say out of your opinon, but what you said has no real base, but if you want to counter answer this, please use examples.
I’m not sure about Vray for Blender state, but I think it can be behind max or maya like Vray C4D is behind Max or Maya, but as I said, I don;t use Vray, so I’m not sure.
Houdini: agree up to some point, thst why I always said a Combo Blender+Houdini or Blender+RF10
Have you tried Bifrost in a serious production? Specially in a production where you need to control liquids… good luck…
Yiu can use RF with Blender, and using OpenVDB smd Alembic, you have everything you need to work with RF/Houdini and Blender.
GUI: it’s a matter of opinion, I like 2.78 UI, it can be improved, and they are saying that year after year, just like Autodesk is saying that Max will be improved or Maya will be improved, I see the same evolutoin in the three packages… so not a big deal for me at least.
If you say that only amateurs get excited about Grease Pencil, this tells me that for sure you are not an animator…
Sculpt… specially in animation… you are not an animator…
Bendy Bones… you are not an animator or rigger…
Dynotopo and such: Blender is not for doing the same as you do in Zbrush, Zbrush is an specialized package, Sculpt tools in blender allow you to sculpt as good as in Mudbox, same level of complexity, but you cannot compare it with Zbrush, but they are magnificient tools for animatoin and fine adjustments in models.
Remesher,the same as before.
Your assumption sbout Blender lagging behind, who was first to implement Open SubDiv? blender or Max? Who was first to implement Bendy Bones? blender or Max? Who was first to implement proper sculpt tools? blender or Max? And I can continue with a lot of tools in all fields…
Don’t assume you are talking with a Hobbyist or a fanboy, I run a business and I pay my packages, I knwo how much it cost every penny I invest, and for the time being, I’ll be better investing in Blender development than in Autodesk or other companies, and we are heading towards this, the only problem is the lack of manpower, due to the Marketing of Autodesk and but this will evolve slowly, we’ll see what happens in the future, for the time being I’m looking for Blender’s manpower, and if I can’t find it’ I’ll teach them myself…
BTW do you run a studio or you do an specific task behind a desk of a much bigger company? Do you pay for your licenses or do others pay for them?
@Juang3D
It’s pretty obvious you’ve not worked with industry pipelines–and that’s all that matters here. Industry pipelines sells Autodesk’s software, more than anything.
Anyways, Let’s review YOUR points:
Object Paint: I do use it, for everything from populating terrains with rock/plant meshes, to adding rivets on machines. I’m aware of Blender’s Grease Pencil Scatter–it’s not analogous to Object Paint. I already stated the closest solution: Asset Sketcher, and it still falls short.
NURBS: I didn’t claim NURBS see wide use. I didn’t claim Max/Maya are the best for NURBS (Rhino 3D’s better for NURBS). But NURBS are still commonly used in product visualization, Arch Viz, and vehicular modeling (plenty of racing games still use NURBS for modeling cars). So, yes, many 3D artists still use them. Maya’s “outdated” NURBS are still ahead of Blender’s almost-nonexistent NURBS.
Remesh: Even the developer of Remesh (Nicholas Bishop) once called it problematic and wants a new Remesh (eventually). Blender’s Remesh modifier produces useless topology, unfit for rigging or UV’ing. 3D packages shouldn’t try to handle sculpting or remeshing. If Blender wants to tackle ZBrush, it’s seriously behind.
OpenSubDiv: OSD is useless if Blender sees no interoperability with industry animation pipelines. Nothing about Blender is industry-friendly. Not even its Alembic…
Alembic: Animators use Maya for Alembic rather than Max. Maya was the first, and Maya is best. Blender uses a very basic implementation of Alembic.
Booleans: Blender’s underlying Booleans need improvement. The Carve system aims to address some of this, but until that happens in full, useful tools like BoolTool are hindered by Booleans that leave artefacts and poor topology.
Rigging: Admittedly, I’m not an animator. I’m a 3D artist (modeling/sculpting/texturing/rigging). But I use Maya’s ART for UE4 games. It just works. I use Max’s CAT occasionally. It’s imperfect, but has good options like quadruped support and muscle support. I’ve tried ALL of Blender’s auto-rig solutions. Few are okay. None are production-ready.
Bones: I didn’t compare “Bones in Max.” Bones are pretty basic and standard in any package. I said Max and Maya have dedicated rigging systems, with “deformation and skinning” options with rigging as differentiates Max/Maya from Blender. And I only mentioned MODO’s equivalent of Bendy Bones just to illustrate how Blender’s not unique. I can’t afford every software, but if industry shifts towards a solution, I follow it. So far, that’s not Blender + Houdini.
PBR: What does PBR have to do with animation? Everything, if you’re working on a team (like I do). Ever seen animated Substances on a model? Asset artists have to keep PBR in mind, when working on next-gen games–even though we’re not animators. Though, I speak for GENERAL 3D content creation. I wasn’t aware you were arguing purely as an animator here, given that we’ve also covered rigging, simulation, and tools in our dialogue so far…
Delta Mush: If I don’t see it official release, I don’t use it. I don’t have time to sort through Blender’s myriad of buildbot and Graphicall builds. Blender’s implementation is incomplete, anyways.
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?366313-Delta-Mush-Modifier/page4
Dual Quaternion: …Both Maya and Softimage (RIP) had DQS before Blender–and handles better. Still, I already explained that industry at large doesn’t use Blender, so Blender beating Max to it doesn’t matter if NOBODY USES BLENDER.
Geodesic Voxel Binding: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Try it when you can. I use it often. Essential for next-gen games, where characters are becoming more complex.
Etc.: Need more? Okay–Maya Muscle.
Cycles: Don’t care about “what’s in trunk” with Blender. Most people don’t have time to fool around with Blender’s “trunk” builds or Graphicall builds. About firefly removal, Cycles could learn from Octane Render and use a filter to help save time with post-pro, or at least offer presets ready for certain uses (like Arch-Viz) like VRay does, to help save time trying to fine-tune Cycles’ nodes.
Light quality: I don’t assume. You can OBSERVE. Cycles is weaker than commercial solutions, on aspects like caustics, radiance, GI, etc. Also, I didn’t say VRay DIDN’T offer biased methods–just that “Maxwell and V-Ray offer real-world-based simulation of light phenomena.” VRay offers SEVERAL methods–you can even use more than one at once. And Maxwell is GPU-accelerated now, so it’s much faster, though studios usually use render farms anyways.
Anyways, need proof?
https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/render-engine-comparison-cycles-vs-giants/
https://visperfect.com/en/cycles-vs-vray/
Look closely. Cycles produces weaker results than commercial solutions. Weaker reflections, weaker shadows, weaker dynamic range of color, weak detail. Cycles is also pretty slow, compared to VRay.
Houdini: I don’t do simulations. My colleagues use RealFlow for fluids. My point was that industry sooner turn to Max/Maya-centric solutions than any Blender + Houdini pipeline.
RealFlow: You CAN use RF with Blender–not efficiently, though. Pipelines are everything in industry. Blender is anti-industry pipeline.
OpenVDB and Alembic: Blender has basic, incomplete support of these features. Even Blender devs list them as “basic.” Nobody uses Blender with RealFlow.
GUI: Blender’s is cluttered, inflexible, and not future-proof. I don’t care if “year after year” Autodesk is saying that Max/Maya will be improved–most people prefer Max/Maya-styled interfaces over Blender’s UI.
Grease Pencil: Grease Pencil’s neat (esp. the animated stuff), but show me one major animation studio using Blender’s Grease Pencil, and I’ll shut up.
Sculpt: No serious animator uses Blender’s sculpting tools for animation (if that’s even a thing).
Bendy Bones: I am TOO a rigger. What’s that got to do with Bendy Bones? Is the industry using Blender for Bendy Bones?
Dyntopo and such: Why use Blender’s Dyntopo when ZBrush Dynamesh exists? Blender DOES try to be a sculpting suite but does it half-assed.
Questions: Who was first to implement Open SubDiv? Maya. Who was first to implement Bendy Bones? MODO. Who was first to implement proper sculpt tools? ZBrush.
People need tools NOW. Blender has been “heading” for better for a decade now. Blender Foundation has few full-time developers, scattered globally, ignoring industry feedback in favor for community feedback. Ton Roosendaal’s said as much himself. They prioritize community, and silly esoteric animated art short films to decide what they’re going to do next. Things are evolving TOO slowly with Blender and not enough towards industry.
* * *
I don’t run a studio. I do love my job, though. I do make decent-enough salary. I get to help work on major game projects (one due from NCSOFT in 2017). I paid for most of my software–ZBrush, Substance, Max, Photoshop. Pricier software like KeyShot and iFX Clarisse are provided at work, so for now, I don’t need to buy them.
Don´t worry, I´ll be back to answer you LOL
Just the week started and I don´t have time right now 🙂
Cheers.
I think this is an endless conversation as actually, I believe you are both righ. What i see, is that one is talking about blender at a videogame environment pipeline. And the other for Film, comertial.
Videogame.
Blender will never be there until somebody makes an external Fbx loader to overpass the licensing trouble. Fbx is is just too importante at games pipelines that having a half working loader&exporter just make it no recomendable at all.
Animation for videogames, pbr is actually a big deal for the effects. And we should add that gpl don-t allow nvidia physics integration. And for videogames, yes, voxel skinning thing is awsome.
Baking with Blender is just too slow and it lacks antialising. I love modos renderer for this task. Sometimes / even if i had to use the explosion morph workflow/ i prefer it rather than xnormal. Less struggling with exports and stuff.
For film, comercial
Blender rigging system actually beats Max. Similar setup i have experimented 12fps playback for a 20.000 character. Blender 25 fps with 4 characters. Nla for blender works pretty well, animation constraint is just so awsome and usefull, the best grease pencil that gives an awsome preproduction to previz workflow, ghosting curves, realtime 25fps videoreproduction for references with character and greasepencil on, rigify is stable and work as it should. With rigify+autoweight+ delta mush+ bendy bones you can have rigs in less than 10 min. Great workflow for correcting morphs / this is were blender sculpting shines/ Not as robust as maya but his referencing system is solid and reliable / this alone makes 3ds max for tv shows not suitable at all/ 3 key shortcut to change all keyframe from constant to bezier, Cage binding it-s actually much more usefull than voxel binding, fast vertex parenting, and a huge etc… that makes animating and rigging in @blender enjoyable, and at max a huge nightmare. But, blender fails at sims, thats why the houdini combo complement it well.
There is one point id like to add. Blender is stable, fluid and fast!!! Thats the main thing i miss from it now that i mainly work with modo for all my modelling. Alembic at blender may be half done. But it-s fair enough to export the animations. Anyway, we still have mdd.
I think Equiso nailed it.
For videogames, I agree, FBX exporter could be improved, but I rarely miss anything from it, and I work in any kind of projects, real time and rendered projects, maybe it is because I rely in features of the engines for other things, I don´t know.
Regarding Nvidia Physx, we rearely do this inside the animation software, we can have some kind of ¨substitute¨ and the actual physics are done and computed in the engine.
And for Baking, you are totally right, but again the thing here is that it depends on what do you use to bake, we do all our materials inside Substance Painter, so the baking is done there, and usually the light is computed in the engine, not in the 3d software, so not a big deal either.
For film and commercial, totally agree, period.
And I want to add one more point, PRICE!
Autodesk software has an increasing price year after year, reduced rights and reduced features year after year, now we have to pay to work… every time we want to work!
The cost is absurd and you are not ivesting in anything, you are just renting!
This is a pretty big deal, even for people that say “is not that bad”, usually this is because they don´t pay the licenses themselves, but hey, they will notice how bad is it when their money at the end of the month is less than what is used to be or when suddenly there are only two persons working on a project that needs three persons on it, money don´t grow in the trees, and this absurde increase of price will affect specially workers in big, medium and small companies.
Do you think any software can beat Blender in price?
In our case we are contributing to Blender´s development, and we will increase or contribution as time goes by, and Autodesk will stop seeing our money, that is for sure, in not too much time, I just need good artists that can work with Blender, and if I don´t find them I´ll teach them.
Cheers!
I’m lucky as my employer now pays for my subscription (I can’t believe that it’s £600 a year). Whilst they are happy to pay it (and it’s cheap compared to some engineering analysis tools) I can’t help feel as though I’m being ripped off.
When I get time I think I’ll start investigating Houdini and Blender, but I’ve been using Max since v2 and it’ll be difficult to move away.
Don’t worry, once you realise what you’ve got in Houdini and the limitless possibilities, the enthusiasm will carry you. The big plus for X 3DSmax guy’s (since the 3Dstdio days on dos) like myself , is Vray, it’s coming to Houdini and the implementation is looking great it’s going to be a real challenge to Redshift, Octane, Arnold, Renderman.
Sorry, but modeling in Houdini is NOT one of its strengths. Houdini uses the most convoluted method for 3D modeling, or any software around. In my field as a 3D asset artist in the industry, you’d have to be out of your right mind to consider using Houdini for anything but procedural tasks. It simply wasn’t built targeting that aspect of 3D digital content well. It’s ore a tool for TAs.
I think you won’t be saying that when they release the new version of Houdini. At present that’s true, Max is better for modelling in but that’s where it ends. In the coming release, they are addressing those issue and making the modelling process for none procedural object similar to other apps.
“I think you won’t be saying that when they release the new version of Houdini.”
I’m pretty sure my opinion will remain. For good reason.
“At present that’s true, Max is better for modelling in but that’s where it ends.”
If you think that all 3ds Max does is modeling, you’re clearly not working in major industry.
It’s rigging, animation, advanced viewport options, and interoperability with other software in ways Houdini has yet to capture all these years.
I’m a 6-year (7 years, in March) veteran and have worked for companies like NCSOFT. Ask any major game developer or animation studio. We’d kill our entire pipeline if we relied on Houdini instead of 3ds Max or Maya. We’d sooner use MODO than Houdini.
“In the coming release, they are addressing those issue and making the modelling process for none procedural object similar to other apps.”
I need tools now–not next year. And they’ve been claiming this since Houdini 14–you expect me to think Houdini 17’s going to catch it up? You expect me to even wait?
Though, few professionals have time to learn a whole new suite and master its peculiarities–esp. one with a high learning curve like Houdini. We’re busy and in demand.
When you’ve got a strength, stick by it. Otherwise, you become like Blender–jack of all trades but master of none.
ZBrush has sculpting. Max has modeling/rigging. Maya has animation. KeyShot has rendering. And Houdini is procedural simulations. That’s the way it is.
When DCC suites are late in adding something, they tend to suck at it. You’re going to be that kid whose always late for class, but expects an A+.
If you’re known for one aspect, and trying to strengthen a long-neglected aspect, more times than not, when you finally add it, it feels lacking.
It’s true about ZBrush’s ZModeler, C4D’s sculpting tools, Rhino’s rendering, and Blender’s half-assed FBX and Alembic support.
If you get by with using Blender and Houdini, good. But you sound like an evangelist to me. Industry pipelines stick with Max/Maya. I stick with them.
By the way, the emerging challenger to Autodesk isn’t Side Effects Software–it’s increasingly become The Foundry, offering MARI, MODO, and NUKE.
MODO is quickly becoming the alternative to Max and Maya, far sooner than Houdini ever will. I’ve already begun learning MODO.
Don’t worry, it isn’t! 😉
if autodesk try and force me to rental, i’ll be OUT..i was about to get vray this week as it was on 20% discount but this news stopped me in my tracks.
I’d suggest taking a look at Redshift – if/when I switch I at least don’t need to buy another version.
C4D is looking likely – it’s the software that comes up in conversation with clients.
I ‘sidegraded’ my Vray license from Maya to Max a few years back and from memory it was quite cheap. I would assume it is possible to sidegrade the vray4max over to Houdini too.
If you already own V-Ray for 3ds Max or Maya, V-Ray for Houdini is completely free for you as you already have the required render license. You only need a license for the V-Ray App SDK, which we give away to existing customers for no extra charge.
Best regards,
Vlado
That’s interesting, thanks – although I really like the look of Houdini, it doesn’t really figure in discussions with clients in the same way C4D does, and as I understand it VRay for C4D is an older version?
As a note, it says that Houdini Indie support for V-Ray (and redshift for that matter) is a future thing.
Oh I didn´t know that. This is really interesting for us too.
If anyone is considering switching to a new piece of software, you should look at the MODO 10 Series videos. The new features have saved me a lot of time over the past year.
I used Maya for 4 years and 3DSMAX for 13+ so I’m no stranger to Autodesk’s software. There is no such thing as a perfect program so you should try all of them to see which one you like the most. All of the DCC programs are comparable these days unless you are wanting crazy fluid dynamics/particle systems (Hi Houdini!). There will definitely be a piece of software that suits your workflow. Make the jump!
MODO is the sanest alternative to Autodesk. By far.
I don’t get why folks are raving about Blender + Houdini, since industry at large avoids Blender, and Houdini’s only strengths are procedural generation and other junk that TAs program (like particle fluids, etc.).
With Softimage gone from the scene, MODO’s pretty much the only rational (and industry-supported) robust alternative to Autodesk.
I disagree, the industry neglects Blender because it is not known, and it seems that the mentality is “if you don´t pay for it then it´s bad”, and that is because they don´t know it.
Blender is far better than Modo in a lot of things.
Now your vision about Houdini… I agree, it is what it is, in fact I´m studying in replacing it with real flow 10, but I´m not sure yet.
The bad thing for Modo, and it´s something we as a company cannot accept, is that they are supposed to install some kind of “spyware” in the computers where you install it ( I think they even say something like that in teh EULA) and we cannot accept that due to several NDA contracts, and of course due to common sense…
So no, Modo is not an alternative, it´s not bad, but it´s not an alternative.
Blender, yes it is, it is far better than max in nearly every aspect, and I´m a long time user of max, around 15 years in different fields, from rigging and animation to scripting, modeling, rendering, lighting… you name it, Blender is very different, it is mainly logical, so you have to understand it´s logic that goes against the Max or Maya logic completely, and then you will be happy with it, very happy, but of course it takes affort to learn it.
I´m looking for people to work with in Blendeer in Spain, but it´s hard, the industry is asking for Blender artists, not just me, but it´s hard to find good Blender artists with developed skills.
Cheers.
Tangent-animation are heading to being 100% Blender, they recently wrapped up on a fully Blender feature movie and are now ramping up to a much larger movie project following that which will also be Blender based as well.
One of the lead guys used to work for alias wavefront on the development of Maya back in the day and they are having 4 full time developers onboard writing code for blender to bring it up to scratch in several areas for feature work which will then be rolled into the main trunk of blender.
they are around 120 employees over at Tangent Animation and over at the blender conference (see youtube) they bring in Maya artists and transition them over to blender.
the future for Blender is looking really rather strong these days in my opinion.
Awesome!
“The future for Blender is looking really rather strong these days in my opinion.”
I’ve heard that opinion for 10 years now. It’s no more happening than Javascript’s becoming “the future.”
Nonsense. The industry’s aware of Blender. It’s gotten plenty enough press in recent years.
Take it from someone who WORKS in industry (and isn’t just a “business owner” like yourself): The industry neglects Blender because:
a) Industry isn’t centered around Blender. It’s surrounded around Max and Maya.
b) Blender has a terrible GPL license. Period. GPL causes licensing issues for most companies.
c) Blender’s community is mostly novices and hobbyists–not professionals. They’re rather off-putting, because they’re always evangelizing the software, desperately trying to compare Blender to industry-standard software.
d) Blender users typically demand for everything to be free and open-source, and often panic every time a third-party solution offers a commercial support for Blender (the way they did Chaos Group, offering V-Ray support for Blender–some folks flat-out harassed the effort). The few professionals in Blender’s community run into this all the time. Go look at Blender Market–Jonathan Williamson faced major flak from Blender users. Only other professional-minded individuals supported him.
e) Blender tries to tackle too many aspects at once (industry prefers software to have a main strength). It lacks focus and a main “strength.”
f) Blender’s UI is alienating to most, and only “makes sense” to folks who grew accustomed to it (usually people whose first 3D modeler ever was Blender). It’s unlike ZBrush, which has an unconventional UI, but robust features that outweigh the unconventional factor.
g) It’s impractical to convert all the solutions ready for Max, Maya, and, increasingly, MODO, towards Blender.
h) Blender has too many releases a year. As soon as you get acclimated to one release, a new one arrives in a few months. Sometimes, an addon stops working in between versions. Sometimes, a system chances and makes backwards-compatibility tougher. You end up having multiple versions of Blender installed. Blender fans love this. Studios hate this.
i) Blender doesn’t have a customer service center. Seriously, you have no idea how often major studios contact Autodesk and The Foundry, and often get customized solutions and technical support. You won’t get this from Blender Foundation–they’ve got their hands full trying to play catch-up with only a handful of full-time developers scattered globally.
j) Blender starts new projects, but never finishes them. They always leave features half-complete, and integration could be tighter.
k) Blender users mistake Blender’s frequent new releases as being the same as Blender staying with current cutting-edge technology. Occasionally, Blender implements something like OpenSubdiv (albeit, a limited implementation), but often times, Blender’s playing catch-up to well-established software. (And I don’t care how late Max has been in adding features–if there’s one thing at least Maya does well, it’s adopt the latest standards.)
* * *
Blender has potential, for sure, but it has major obstacles. Most of it being its very own design philosophy and stubborn amateur-heavy community. It’s more community-oriented than industry-oriented. Your personal fondness for Blender doesn’t negate this reality.
And despite what you say about MODO, it’s still gaining more ground within the industry than Blender has (or ever will). Thanks to MARI’s popularity, and MODO’s growing use, The Foundry is slowly becoming the next Autodesk–for better or for worse.
In my case, Blender + Houdini and/or the new RealFlow wich has a ver very good price, I’all be acquiring it very soon, and no limit like Houdini Indie (wich I still think it’s an awesome program and it’s REALLY good priced for Indie teams)
Cheers.
Interesting but not suprising. Its interesting to see so many people can easily switch over to another software. I guess it depends on what kind of clients you have, most of mine use 3ds max and maya as their main tool and I dont see them switching from that anytime soon.
C4D comes up in conversation quite often – I don’t know any of my usual clients who are on later than 2013, and since AD shut off that route of upgrades they’ve just been sticking with 2013 or older.
Now the talk is a shift to C4D rather than renting new seats of Max.
Rental is crap for indies/freelancers – I split between using my own seat when working from home, the client’s software on site, and sometimes taking a laptop in.
I’m not going to pay £204 month-to-month or pay £1644 in advance regardless of whether I’m using it or not.
Autodesk is on a different planet if they think freelancers or small companies are willing to pay that – they obviously don’t care.
C4D does come up a lot, but I always find that there is a strong resistance from people who want to switch.
I have been lucky that I have been working in places that are on subscription or happy to pay for the rental. Maybe when that stops then I will have to thing of alternatives. Cost wise Houdini seems the best option, but I am not seeing demand for that in small studios.
Agree with you Stephen.
Cheers.
Curious, I wonder if that decrease of 34,000 maintenance contracts went over to a different software package altogether.
I’ll tell you one thing right now, I will not pay their “subscription” prices when I can get a more task specific tool for the same money (or less). I love max and the price I am paying now (on maintenance sub), although it has been steadily increasing, I believe is still a fair deal, especially considering how much I spend on 3rd party to make it a “complete” package.
There was a time when I shuttered at the thought, now I am really beginning to applaud 3rd party devs for expanding their base package integration to apps other than AME.
i think that when autodesk will take hi’s own risk on develop a totally new software that will take the place of MAX and MAYA then they will bite the competitors
autodesk has the money and the power and the trust from users to do it!!
this is just my opinion but these softwares are very old and heavy and based on old cores
they try to bite each other on movies and games, they keep watching the past
too many people still fight the old MAX Vs Maya battle (ignoring all the incredibly powerfull plugins for sintance…)
in the meantime Houdini got an important slice of the FILM market that was in the hands of autodesk just because of this stupid battle…and Autodesk has hi’s how responsabilities in that
rental program in the place of subscription and permanent licenses are just small things compared to develop the software of the future
too many divisions in the same family will cause the end of that family
please unify the artists!! they do the final job
Trust?
hahahaha!
you think it’s too late?!?!
I am saying that I don’t have any trust in Autodesk management.
The coming release of Houdini is going to take a lot of these artists looking for a new platform. Having moved over now and with the development going on, it feels great to know the effort in learning a new app that is by far the best future proof one out there. Particularly after the lies, AD told us year in year out on Max.
yes AD was truly convenced that all Max users and FX people in general had to move on Maya
useless to say that they did a mistake…now they have to work hard and i think they have too much beef on the barbecue
who knows how far they can go in this way
If Autodesk were smart, they’d simply offer MULTIPLE ways to own or use their products.
Offer a permanent-license standalone price, a payment-plan subscriptions, AND a rental option, so that you target various studios and artists with various needs.
Because these stupid business models AREN’T keeping customers, they AREN’T hindering piracy with their rental model, and they DO have some rising competition.
Spot-on – this is the root of it. It might sound counter-intuitive, but given the position of Autodesk in the market, leaving only one licensing option open smacks of a lack of confidence in the subscription model. In other words, they seem to believe that if they left perpetuals available, then very few people or studios would go for subscription.
Maintenance subs are a loose end in this scenario, so its only a matter of time. And then there is the crazy high price of monthly subscription – I think partly its because they feel they can – they know a chunk of their customers can’t contemplate using anything else, and its also a marketing tactic to try and persuade the doubters of the prestige of the product. Well, fortunately new software doesn’t scare me and 90% of my clients really don’t care if I drive an Autodesk product.. (or a flash car)
The problem for them is that there are studios that don´t want to upgrade, this way they force the upgrade and the payment, they want to drain the cow as much as they can…
True.
For what I need to upgrade if it’s costly and don’t added into my work ANY progress. Since from 3d max 2010 only 2016 (posible) have some reason to do. Even free – upgrade is to costly for time and pipeline.
Good way – making a one GOOD new version of Max and Maya in a year and in next year add upgrade in perfomance.