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Neil Blevins to discontinue support for Soulburnscripts
Neil Blevins has announced that he will discontinue the development and maintenance of the popular collection of tools Soulburnscripts after the release of Max 2022.
Neil has made no secret of the fact that he is “100% against rental only software”, so his decision following Autodesk’s recent announcement that it is to end perpetual licensing should not come as a surprise.
The scripts will remain available, with one final update in April 2021 to add compatibility with 3dsmax 2022. And as scripts aren’t like plugins that require compiling after ever SDK break, it is reasonable to assume that they will work for some time to come. Neil has said that if anyone wishes to modify the script pack to be compatible with later versions, they are free to do so as long as they continue to be distributed free of charge.
Read more about Neil’s decision on his blog including a separate article about rental only licensing.
The CGPress team would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Neil Blevins for his hard work and dedication in maintaining this excellent resource including the many articles on CG education he has published over a nearly 20 year period.
rental software suks – period.
Such a shame when Autodesk pushes away even the most dedicated users who helped grow their ecosystem, which would quite barren without the community of scripters and developers.
there is something really incredible about how AD went all nero with its community.
i understand there are activist stockholders and possibly internal strife, but even so these are not acts of a rational corporation.
the utter and obvious lack of regard for anything other than money is so short sighted and so obviously disdainful of its customer base i can only attribute it to panic. but that does not make any sense for a company their size…
Now that Neil showed ADSK the middle finger I hope he finally starts coding for Blender. I couldn’t imagine myself working in Max without his awesome scripts though.
100% agree
In his post he has given his reasons to why he wont be doing that. Coding for blender that is.
“A number of people have also asked would I consider moving to new software like Blender. If I was still a kid in college, the answer would be yes.()But I have a family and full time job!” (Neil Blevins)
In other words: No time for useless things.
Very sad, but also very interesting.
Our company uses 3dsmax since many years but missing innovations by autodesk also might let us switch to Blender – hopefully soon.
its one thing when randos hate on the subscription and bring on these same exact arguments, something entirely different when a well respected veteran like neil does it.
i have even more respect for him for speaking so openly, not only about autodesk but the future of software. infact its all pretty validating to be honest.
thanks neil.
you can use it in Houdini at a reasonable price, the update is excellent than Autodesk.
I really like the Houdini3D technology and marketing prospect, and it plays an important role in 3D-VFX Visual World, yet by all sympathy we should not spread fake hopes:
Houdini FX Artist (a market competitive flagship, what we see in all those demos – forget the Indie toy-version) costs:
$ 4.495,00 (https://www.sidefx.com/buy/#houdini-artists)
+ $ 2.495,00 USD Annual Upgrade Plan
This is the most expensive 3D Software in the world, and it has the most expensive Subscription/Maintenance on the market. No other software can compete with this exorbitant pricing, especially if we take studio license with it $ 8.000,00 in the equation.
I would like to know how this is a reasonable price in comparison to any other 3D-Software on the market?
Because NPCs say Autodesk bad
just in case anyone is wondering, NPC or non-playable-character, in reference to real world people and their opinions, is a right-wing trope born out of the cesspool called 4chan with the aim of disparaging trump critics and pretty much any left leaning opinion as merely being parrots that just echo certain opinions.
look it up yall.
barring the fact how vile it is to bring up this insulting political nonsense as a response to the thoughtful and heartfelt post of an absolute legend in autodesk community, it also misses the mark entirely on a most basic logical level. surprise-surprise ikr:
the most vocal critics of autodesk are the people that actually pick up the tab for the license. for studio employees it makes little difference if a license cost x or y, if its a rental or permanent. you can follow this right? that makes these same critics infact the exact opposite of non playing, as you so eloquently put it.
all of that really begs the question:what is it that you do industry-wise? are you employed or freelance or own a company perchance? do you pay for any of your licenses if so which ones? i am really interested in the context of your “opinions”.
please provide some info here will ya?
infact, i would actually love to see your work. if you show me yours, i´ll show you mine?
While I agree, it depends on your needs, you can easily upgrade Houdini once every 4 years, so that means 2247.5€ / year, and you have to take into account that that is for a perpetual license, while it’s not cheaper than the rental options for Autodesk, it’s perpetual, so for example you could decide to keep your Houdini version for 6 years, and that would make 1498 €/year, and you have to take into account that the first year of upgrades it’s included in the price, and I’m including the purchase of the second license once you want to upgrade, with the toolset present in Houdini for some studios it could be a great deal and being in one version of the software for 4 years is not something uncommon.
If we speak of medium studios, 5 Houdini licenses should be enough, if we speak about LARGE studios, then 8000$ is not a big deal, plus they also have rental options for those cases.
And if we are talking about small artists / freelance, the Indie version has a very good price for the value delivered, and as always you can purchase a perpetual license.
So I don’t think SideFX is doing things wrong, being the most expensive does not mean not being profitable.
The real question is wheter you really need houdini or not, it will largely depend on your work load.
I still do not come to the wishful numbers, i do not understand the math:
First, to cut out the Indie out of the game:
– annual gross under $100K USD: there is no such limitation in Autodesk software.
– Houdini Indie cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini.
– Houdini Indie uses its own file format for saving scenes and assets.
This way it is only for playing around, posting few Artstation or Twitter sea-shore wow-look-what-i-can-do clips. Using it for commercials or in combination with some agency advert/cinema pipeline is not possible. So – cut out this demo out of the discussion, it only gives some wrong illusion to the clueless artists.
Upgrading Houdini Artist every 4 years. Really? Houdini comes out almost twice a year with ground-breaking updates, no one will wait for an eon (in 3d world it is an eon) for an update, this is not serious.
5 Houdini Studio license is $ 32.000,-. Plus annual subscribtion. How can this be less expensive then Max or Maya (and by all means, i am the last person to advertise Autodesk)
And at last, Autodesk has probably this Indie concept of, what – $ 300,- in US/Canada. This will very likely come in next years to EU and the rest of the world, since they know they must do it in order to survive.
I think we have different interpretation of costs at the moment, or did i misunderstood your calculation?
thanks
While you can’t mix Houdini Indie with regular Houdini you can mix Houdini Core and Houdini FX quite nicely, so you don’t need a full Houdini FX license for each person on the team unless everyone needs FX features all of the time and it’s my understanding that FX users can also create HDAs which rely on FX tools and make those available to Houdini Core users without an issue. I won’t argue that Houdini is inexpensive but I would suggest that money you give to SideFX goes directly to the developers of the software and, rather than being weaponized against you to buy up competing products and to craft hostile licensing schemes, goes directly into the development of the software and pushes the state of the art in 3D graphics. I have largely transitioned completely to Houdini and it’s amazing. I can’t yet model with the same fluidity that I can in 3ds max but, overall, Houdini is amazing in its depth, breadth, and continuing development.
ok, explaining it this way, it can makes more sense.
Thanks Steve, nice to see you are still around! You were my lighthouse and the first inspiration back in 1996 as i started using 3ds Max 🙂
Glad to see you are still around as well Igor. 🙂 You are a super-talented artist!
You can use Houdini Indie for commericial projects I dont know what you are on about.
https://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini/houdini-indie/
scroll down
find the sentence:
“– Houdini Indie cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini.”
read it.
I never wrote you can’t use it commercially, how did you compose this conclusion in your mind? I just copy&paste what the company stated in their eula.
This way it is only for playing around, posting few Artstation or Twitter sea-shore wow-look-what-i-can-do clips. Using it for commercials or in combination with some agency advert/cinema pipeline is not possible. So – cut out this demo out of the discussion, it only gives some wrong illusion to the clueless artists.
Thats what you said,
Right now there is no other software in the market selling all what houdini offers together. Multisolvers, RBD, procedural modelling, particles, vdb toolset, usd implementation,…. and all data flowing from a to z. Its really expensive, yes, but also quite unic.
Would want to add that if you buy the most expensive, full Houdini FX, it’s because you need Pyro, Cloth, RBD etc. If you take for example 3dsMax, and add on all the plugins you need to do the same job they even out quite a lot. Also you don’t have to wait for plugins to become cross compatible. I.e. FumeFX to work with V-Ray and TP. It’s a massive headache and time-sink you can take out of the equation. And perhaps, the biggest thing for us. Support! AD hardly have direct user support. Or when it comes to plugins, developers pointing at each other. While SideFX will reply within hours, fix things in daily builds, or just take the scene file and look at it directly. They keep us up to date with fixes and new features we request. And they do this same, great service for Indie users as well.
On top of that you have unlimited free rendering nodes with Mantra. That might not be your cup of tea, but in my studio – combining cloud rendering with free render nodes made it look CHEAP compared to the competition.
It’s really all about perspective and your studio. We’re mixing Max and Houdini in our pipeline, but more and more is just being pushed out through Houdini and Mantra.
Hi Igor, yes Houdini is expensiv but it is not so expensiv as most people think.
if you just want to model, animate and render then houdini is expensiv software.
When the target is to use full potenitial of houdini then it is a fair priced software.
houdini functions like crowds, tissue muscle system, terrain generation, LOP’s, pdg. as a example can be bought for maya as plugins. but the plugins can also be costly.
a crowd system can cost 7000 Euro (golaem),
tissue system from ziva that is surly a better product is 1800 $ per year,
Lop’s is currently not on pair with clarisse or katana but sidefx shows they will deliver, you also get 5 karma render license. clarisse starts at 2299$ per seat and a katana starts at 9458$.
you get terrian system that can cost only 199-299$ (gaea)
there is also pdg in houdini that automate task / processes. i don’t know any other plugin or DCC software that does that.
all prices are not indie no license income restriction. i would say when karma and LOP’s are production ready you get a very fair price product even when it is houdini core.
I did not say that the Houdini FX license. Attention, a reasonable price this means that which “Houdini Indie” cost per year $ 269 is excellent, enable update, maintenance.
I don’t need a full Houdini FX, I will choose a personal project to fit “Houdini Indie”
Thanks for the kind words guys. And just to note, I will continue to publish new art related CG Education articles in the future (in fact, should have one out this weekend), but they’ll now be more general 3d or 2d painting related. Cheers to 25 years of 3dstudio!