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Mudbox 2016...nearly EOL?


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Then get Modo :p

 

Max 2016s creation graphs are a neat new feature that got my attention; The ability to quickly create custom tools and modifiers without messing with maxscript or the sdk sounds great.

I'm definitely considering it, but the Foundry has been up for sale, so it's on shaky ground, too. That Max Creation Graph doesn't tell me AD has long term plans...just some ICE functionality that they had the know-how, in-house, and are biding their time. They added some decent features to XSI the last few versions, too, but that was no indication of what diabolical plans they had in store for the app. Sort of like giving a guy a cigar just before putting him in front of a firing squad. Or giving a death-row inmate a steak dinner the day before his execution.

 

What is really odd about this is Max has been their best seller, yet they are trying to push more and more users toward Maya.

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what really got me happy about max, is i installed a recent demo do convert some files and they finally gave me a choice to use maya naviagtion (aka, cinema4d/universal) because before the middle click to pan just drove me nuts.

 

but as abn says, don't really want to reward this kind of behaviour... And don't want to be stuck with them when they bail on the entertainment suite.. rather be somewhere like houdini...

 

on the other hand if maxon buy maya and merges all the tech into cinema that would make me crazy happy =)

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I won't count out 3dmax yet.

Compared to the userbase of softimage which is negligible if you consider the scope of 3d graphics, Max has users outside of the entertainment market. They could afford to kille softimage I assume the revenue was so small for that. The viz and cad industry is highly dependent on max. Its definitely a bigger source of money for AD. Maya is not suited for that market.

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I won't count out 3dmax yet.

Compared to the userbase of softimage which is negligible if you consider the scope of 3d graphics, Max has users outside of the entertainment market. They could afford to kille softimage I assume the revenue was so small for that. The viz and cad industry is highly dependent on max. Its definitely a bigger source of money for AD. Maya is not suited for that market.

My guess is that Autodesk is trying to slowly push their architectural visualization and CAD customers out of Max and into other Autodesk alternative products like Revit (for architecture) and Fusion 360 (for CAD). Of course I think the transition process will take some years, but I think there is evidence showing that the process has already begun. Autodesk probably feels that Max is spread out across too many different industries and it is therefore hard to develop Max to suit all of those differences appropriately. Should they spend time developing character rigging tools or spend time making tools for design viz? Too difficult. So they drop Max and send the Media and Entertainment customers to Maya, the Architectural customers to Revit, the CAD/CAM customers to Fusion 360. That is my theory at least.
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My guess is that Autodesk is trying to slowly push their architectural visualization and CAD customers out of Max and into other Autodesk alternative products like Revit (for architecture) and Fusion 360 (for CAD). Of course I think the transition process will take some years, but I think there is evidence showing that the process has already begun. Autodesk probably feels that Max is spread out across too many different industries and it is therefore hard to develop Max to suit all of those differences appropriately. Should they spend time developing character rigging tools or spend time making tools for design viz? Too difficult. So they drop Max and send the Media and Entertainment customers to Maya, the Architectural customers to Revit, the CAD/CAM customers to Fusion 360. That is my theory at least.

Even though I despise AD, moving to Maya is starting to make a lot of sense to me, now. I never really considered it before now, but all the features they've rolled into Maya and the cleaner UI makes it pretty compelling. Compelling enough to overcome my hate for AD. I suspect the Creation graph in Max 2016 is an effort to help the Max community develop it's own tools, so AD do as much development in house. They are probably going to continue with weak releases (which this one would be, if not for the Creation Graph), and frustrate Max users until they are ready to give it the XSI treatment.

 

I'd like to break away from AD altogether, and give Blender a solid look, but it would be nearly impossible to find work in the US, with Blender experience.

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Even though I despise AD, moving to Maya is starting to make a lot of sense to me, now. I never really considered it before now, but all the features they've rolled into Maya and the cleaner UI makes it pretty compelling. Compelling enough to overcome my hate for AD. I suspect the Creation graph in Max 2016 is an effort to help the Max community develop it's own tools, so AD do as much development in house. They are probably going to continue with weak releases (which this one would be, if not for the Creation Graph), and frustrate Max users until they are ready to give it the XSI treatment.

 

I'd like to break away from AD altogether, and give Blender a solid look, but it would be nearly impossible to find work in the US, with Blender experience.

 

Well there are some great reasons to skill avoid Autodesk, no matter how good Maya starts to look. For starters, the price point + no upgrades and the forcing of users onto a subscription platform after their 2016 lineup. Its a recipe thats not going to benefit the consumer, at all.

So far after switching to Modo, I quite literally have very little in the way of regret. Better modeling tools, UVing is just as good (and simple) as 3D Coat, Similar retopo workflow, sculpting...ect In addition to that, there's the 3d coat applink, substance integration... AND the software has not only seasonal discounts, but upgrades that dont punish you for skipping a version or two. This means someone with Modo 201 can jump up to Modo 901 by just paying the same upgrade cost as everyone else. This way you are not forced into constantly upgrading just to keep your "upgrade price" going every year. Its extremely pro consumer. Unlike Autodesk, Luxology/Foundry do not really buy out plugins and other applications in place of at home R&D. They do most of their own development, and with the added python scripting... we expect 3rd party development to get a huge boost.

Blender is really growing up too, but the con to its licensing and developer approach... is that not everything is polished nor do we see a lot of 3rd party integration of commercial products...such as Substances.

 

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Well there are some great reasons to skill avoid Autodesk, no matter how good Maya starts to look. For starters, the price point + no upgrades and the forcing of users onto a subscription platform after their 2016 lineup. Its a recipe thats not going to benefit the consumer, at all.

So far after switching to Modo, I quite literally have very little in the way of regret. Better modeling tools, UVing is just as good (and simple) as 3D Coat, Similar retopo workflow, sculpting...ect In addition to that, there's the 3d coat applink, substance integration... AND the software has not only seasonal discounts, but upgrades that dont punish you for skipping a version or two. This means someone with Modo 201 can jump up to Modo 901 by just paying the same upgrade cost as everyone else. This way you are not forced into constantly upgrading just to keep your "upgrade price" going every year. Its extremely pro consumer. Unlike Autodesk, Luxology/Foundry do not really buy out plugins and other applications in place of at home R&D. They do most of their own development, and with the added python scripting... we expect 3rd party development to get a huge boost.

Blender is really growing up too, but the con to its licensing and developer approach... is that not everything is polished nor do we see a lot of 3rd party integration of commercial products...such as Substances.

 

Some may not like the subscription approach, and while I agree that there should be a range of options, it's not prohibitively expensive...especially considering all it offers. It also makes the price of entry more inviting than buying a $1600 license of Modo (doesn't have VFX simulation smoke/fire/liquids tools...not even a plugin available to fill the gap) + $400/yr to keep current. Subscriptions spread the cost out, in smaller increments over the long term. And if you don't use the app for certain periods of time, you can discontinue and pick it resume whenever you are ready. I'd like them to lower the monthly rate a good deal, but cost is not a major obstacle.

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Modo just raised the price by $300 for new licenses to offset the cost of meshfusion. Its now $1,800 from 1495.

I'm sure meshfusion is really useful but like anything extra its useful for some and not for others. I hope they have some more stuff they show that isn't modelling related.

Pretty sure the upgrade price will go up as well next year. The current upgrade price is a good move since there's a lot of talk about the Foundry being sold this year. Come next year it could be different. A price point of $695 for upgrades is logical.

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I'd like to break away from AD altogether, and give Blender a solid look, but it would be nearly impossible to find work in the US, with Blender experience.

I am getting near to finishing a motion graphics project that I did about 50% in Blender. Normally I would prefer Maya, but I decided to try Blender as an experiment because I was given ample time to finish this particular project. My client seems to be satisfied with the part I did with Blender, and I am satisfied with it too.

Of course I have used Blender for little things in the past, so it is not brand new to me, but I hadn't ever used it seriously until I used it for this project. This project required me to do some modeling, rigging, painting bind weights, animating a human arm, rendering with Freestyle and vector motion blur. I would describe the overall experience as pleasant.

I did notice however that Blender is not as good as Maya in many ways. Of course I am not an expert with using Blender yet, but I did a bunch of research trying to find the same tools and workflows in Blender that I would have used in Maya, but I was a bit disappointed with the Blender versions of those tools and workflows.

For example, soft select is very nice in Maya, but the Blender version (called proportional editing), is not as good because you can not visually see the falloff like you can in Maya. In Maya the vertices are colored with a gradient, but in Blender there is just a big circle which appears on the screen and you have to imagine what the falloff looks like inside of the circle. Of course you can see the effects of the falloff by moving the mesh, but it becomes more of a trial and error process than it is in Maya because you don't have good visual feedback for what you are doing.

On the other hand, there are some things I really enjoyed about using Blender. It may sound strange but I actually like the Blender UI. (But I think the Maya 2016 UI has some nice improvements too). Also, I set up Maya-style navigation in Blender and it works fine for me. All the hotkeys I left as Blender defaults. The Blender animation graph editor is nice too.

Basically I still prefer Maya so far, but I definitely like Blender despite its apparent shortcomings. I am writing a list of all the things I think need to be improved in Blender, and at some point I will post it somewhere. I don't know where feature requests, improvements, or bug fixes are supposed to be posted for Blender, or if the Blender developers are as responsive to users as Andrew is to 3D-Coat users, but there is a new release every two months, so I guess things are somehow getting fixed and improved.

I foresee that I might be willing to use Blender again in the future depending on what the project requires. I might even be able to skip the Maya rental fee for a month or two and save some money!

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Some may not like the subscription approach, and while I agree that there should be a range of options, it's not prohibitively expensive...especially considering all it offers. It also makes the price of entry more inviting than buying a $1600 license of Modo (doesn't have VFX simulation smoke/fire/liquids tools...not even a plugin available to fill the gap) + $400/yr to keep current. Subscriptions spread the cost out, in smaller increments over the long term. And if you don't use the app for certain periods of time, you can discontinue and pick it resume whenever you are ready. I'd like them to lower the monthly rate a good deal, but cost is not a major obstacle.

 

Couple points:

1) Its much more expensive, and not as inviting. For example: 12 month sub for Maya will cost you $1840, after that you lose the license until you commit to another $1840. How is this logically more inviting than a $1500-$1800 software package with no expiration and no forced upgrade penalty? Every year so far, Modo has also had 40% off sales, which drops it to around the $1000 mark.

 

2) My significant other works in VFX studio here in Hollywood, they use Modo just fine for VFX work (high profile film and tv shows). But you are right, up to version 801, it could be better...which is why 901 (coming out in May) has a big update regarding this very subject. There's some stuff I cant mention because its in their direct connect section (private info), but once its publicly released, you can pretty much cover a lot more ground with Modo on the VFX front. We are already starting to see some modo users pick up Houdini Indie as a companion app. Thats enough hints I can give at this point.

3) Modo doesnt force you to upgrade, nor is it about keeping current (as mostly the big updates just add features). Unlike with Autodesk you do get service packs for free, these are released throughout the year in between major versions. I did'nt upgrade to 801 because I didnt need its new snapping system or some of the other functionality it came with.  901 does have a lot of stuff I can get a lot of use out of, so the upgrade. Cost me $399 at the time. Thats less than one quarter's worth of a Maya sub.

 

4) I personally believe the subscription option is far more relevant to studios who are working on a project and may not need the licenses after or that its just easier to maintain from a studio standpoint. I really cannot see the benefit, financially, from a single user pov. On the flip side, Modo Indie along with Mari indie did present a sub option, about $9.99 a month for a 6 month plan, or $15 for both. Now that I can understand.

Anyways just some feedback... from what I am seeing with 901, it will impress and address the concerns some may have had with Modo.

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Couple points:

1) Its much more expensive, and not as inviting. For example: 12 month sub for Maya will cost you $1840, after that you lose the license until you commit to another $1840. How is this logically more inviting than a $1500-$1800 software package with no expiration and no forced upgrade penalty? Every year so far, Modo has also had 40% off sales, which drops it to around the $1000 mark.

 

2) My significant other works in VFX studio here in Hollywood, they use Modo just fine for VFX work (high profile film and tv shows). But you are right, up to version 801, it could be better...which is why 901 (coming out in May) has a big update regarding this very subject. There's some stuff I cant mention because its in their direct connect section (private info), but once its publicly released, you can pretty much cover a lot more ground with Modo on the VFX front. We are already starting to see some modo users pick up Houdini Indie as a companion app. Thats enough hints I can give at this point.

3) Modo doesnt force you to upgrade, nor is it about keeping current (as mostly the big updates just add features). Unlike with Autodesk you do get service packs for free, these are released throughout the year in between major versions. I did'nt upgrade to 801 because I didnt need its new snapping system or some of the other functionality it came with.  901 does have a lot of stuff I can get a lot of use out of, so the upgrade. Cost me $399 at the time. Thats less than one quarter's worth of a Maya sub.

 

4) I personally believe the subscription option is far more relevant to studios who are working on a project and may not need the licenses after or that its just easier to maintain from a studio standpoint. I really cannot see the benefit, financially, from a single user pov. On the flip side, Modo Indie along with Mari indie did present a sub option, about $9.99 a month for a 6 month plan, or $15 for both. Now that I can understand.

Anyways just some feedback... from what I am seeing with 901, it will impress and address the concerns some may have had with Modo.

If one chooses to pay upfront for the year, it's about 1500. That keeps you up to date, and again, if you go month to month, you don't have to pay for the months you don't plan to use it. For example, if you mostly work in 3D Coat or ZBrush, and only use a major app about 6mos out of the year, then you don't have to pay for the 6mos you don't use it, and you can resume whenever you feel like it. For someone who has already shelled out a lot for a perpetual license...like Max or C4D, for example, they don't have to come up with another huge amount of cash to get started in Maya. They would have to find another $1800 laying around somewhere, to get started in Modo, and pay $400+ to upgrade to 1001, a year later.

 

Smaller increments is what makes the move to Maya more inviting in financial terms, especially consider all that it offers. I hope they come down some more, but it's fairly reasonable if one uses it for work. Surely it makes you more than $125-185 in a months time. There are no VFX tools in Modo, so a person has to buy/use a separate app just to do that sort of work...even a Motion Graphics artist. So, Modo may be nice for some, but it's not yet a full-fledged alternative to AD products, IMHO. I wish it were.

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Necropost.

While we're at it, since we're on the topic and bumping old threads... :) FWIW, You don't pay each year for upgrades to Modo. You can skip a complete version and still pay the same upgrade price, even after two version, or three version for that matter. If you have a copy of Modo 101 laying around, you can upgrade it right now for the same cost as someone who has 901, or 501. It doesn't matter. That might change in the future, but that's how it's been since Modo came about, and that's how it will be until The Foundry say otherwise.

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17 hours ago, Javis said:

Necropost.

While we're at it, since we're on the topic and bumping old threads... :) FWIW, You don't pay each year for upgrades to Modo. You can skip a complete version and still pay the same upgrade price, even after two version, or three version for that matter. If you have a copy of Modo 101 laying around, you can upgrade it right now for the same cost as someone who has 901, or 501. It doesn't matter. That might change in the future, but that's how it's been since Modo came about, and that's how it will be until The Foundry say otherwise.

Think the Modo community would be in a huge uproar if they ever changed this policy

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25 minutes ago, existe said:

Think the Modo community would be in a huge uproar if they ever changed this policy

I agree. It would really upset a lot of people.

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While we're teasing zombies...

Saw the list of features for Mudbox 2017... Sooooo dead! I think it's one new brush.. Someone probably dug up an old alpha that was left in a folder and slapped it on. I was also hoping to see the dyna sculpting features we saw in a Maya tech demo last year but nope, nothing on new on the sculpting side of things except performance. I dont use Maya but still had hopes for MB.. RIP.

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