Hi, I had a general question. What makes Maya and 3DS Max worth $3000-$5000? I know it’s the “industrial standard” but what makes it that? More tool than Blender, more options, more capability?
Thanks.
When your applications have a near-monopoly when it comes to serious production and movie work, when your applications have been the leaders in terms of total functionality, power, and number of tools for more than 15 years, then you can indeed command those type of prices and make a lot of profit.
In fact, in a lot of 3D art and animation academies, Maya is the only tool they allow you to use (no Blender allowed). When Autodesk is able to pull that sort of thing, they can command the market even if some of their releases are lackluster at best.
I think it has to do with tax write-offs, myself. When you’re making that kind of scratch, you need to offset some of that income with a few deductions. Otherwise, the taxman will eat your lunch.
Oh. And one other thing: When you pay big bucks, you get to bitch and complain to someone who has to actually respond and try to unruffle your feathers. Around here, no one pays any real attention to complainers. You know; as it should be. 
Interesting. Thanks guys!
They’re all good in their own ways. As mentioned, Maya asks that much money because most major companies use it and most training programs use it. When you’re top of the heap and in demand, you can charge as you like… particularly if competition is slim pickings.
And if I remember correctly Max is a lot easier to animate in than Blender or Maya, or the other way around. I played with them on a friend’s computer months ago for a week… so don’t quote me.
It’s the same with zbrush vs sculptris / mudbox [and whatever else falls into the sculpting scale].
So if Blender ever caught up with Maya it could just as readily become a $5,000+ program.
If you want a real comparison look up some of the stuff done in turbosquid. There’s an earth there done by Max or Maya, can’t remember which, for example that probably would be impossible to copy via Blender.
What makes Maya and 3DS Max worth $3000-$5000?
The toolset, and the fact that they are industry standard.
I know it’s the “industrial standard” but what makes it that?
They deliver what the industry needs. And it gets used in the Industry.
Its simple: Autodesk provides software for companies for whom £3,000 is peanuts and rely on support and maintenance for peace of mind for current and future productions. What is at stake here, beyond just the price of the software, is in-house development of plugins and those they purchase from other external developers, hired talent and compatibility with other software in the vfx company’s pipeline. Now imagine Autodesk suddenly announcing they will be retiring such a package that a company pays peace-of-mind for…that vfx company is now, understandably, very cheesed off and now asking the question “what the bloody hell am I paying AD for?”. Transitioning to another package is expensive, and requires a lot of time to do.
When purchasing a 3D package make sure you look beyond just beyond the price tag and take into account other factors such as additional render-nodes, plug-ins, compatibility, hardware & software requirements and background of the software vendor. For example(and for the sake of), for a Blender user looking for a better sculpting solution might think the obvious choice is ZBrush. However, ZBrush does not support GOZ for Blender(yet?) but looking elsewhere, 3DCoat offers an applink for Blender. The industry standard or the best tool for the job? Which will you decide to purchase?
But to quote a certain pair of internet celebrities…"…but this just advice, man…you can do whatever the F*** YOU WANNA DO!"
I have a quick Question\ answer.
Is it? 
But also, don’t forget one thing: studios have multi-year production cycles for any project, in which they produce, use, and seek to re-use digital assets worth millions of dollars. They have standardized their entire operations around “something that is known to work for them,” and they’d be quite-the-fool to change it now. A $3-5K/per-seat license cost is nothing at all to them, as long as, when they say “Jump!”, the vendor replies, “Yessir! How High?”
If you’re trying to get in with a production house, you have to be, or be able to become, conversant in whatever tool runs their “shop.”
Certainly, one of the nicest things about Blender is that it does enable you to gain practical experience on the techniques that are used by these other packages … and to do so at no cost. But, that’s still never going to cause them to disrupt their production workflow. Nor should it. The studios, I think, are correct for doing what they do.
Well…this is the thing is’int. When you read in the likes of 3DWorld and 3DArtist how an individual is using Max, ZBrush, Mari and Photoshop in their pipeline…one has to question if they are doing the art on a pc at work or at home. From the working professionals I have spoken to over the years, the answer has always been “put your money away and just download it.”.
Whilst that was certainly doable 10 years ago, you now have the Cloud putting a damper on things. It is now getting harder to crack software such as Photoshop, unless you are a bit of a computer whizz-kid and well informed. Even over on CGTalk where they used to brow-beat that digital art software is not expensive, you suddenly saw lists of alternative software in response to Adobe’s decision to take Photoshop entirely Cloud. Whilst there are indeed valid negatives to using the Cloud, one has to ask if those are just excuses covering up the fact they will have to start paying for their software from now on…
If there is no real competition and it’s a product in well paid industry then you can increase the price. They have done it over the years just because they can.