Autodesk to go subscription-based only

Inevitable… but also seems like an opportunity that Blender could take full advantage of.:yes:

Don’t want to be a Blender fanboy or anything, but finally, time for Autodesk to feel some pain… :RocknRoll:
But seriously, with Blender 2.72 out just today, I think we’ll be having some new people around really soon!
While Autodesk pisses off 90% of their customers, one of the best Blender versions has just been released. Nice timing…

The Foundry and SideFX managers and investors are toasting :D.

I don’t think Ton and co. would’ve even been looking at Autodesk’s future plans as a guide to time the release, as it’s just reliably following the regimen they’ve had in place for releases for at least a few years now.

And if Autodesk feels any pain in the short term, it will more likely be the direct result of their own decisions rather than Blender’s doing, they’ll still make millions either way since the majority of large studios will still maintain seats.

This won’t change anything. Studios make up the majority of ADs income and they’ll continue to use AD products. Blender and its community will likely not experience anything new because of this aside from this post, let’s be realistic.

What are you all talking about? What pain? There’s probably going to be a bit of internet grumbling here and there, but no serious user is going to quit AD products because of this.

Real case scenarios:

If you want to buy 50 licences that cost (e.g) 1000$ each, you pay only 50.000$.

Now, if you rent 50 licences for 10 months with only (e.g.) 60 $ you pay only:
50 * 10 * 60 = 30.000$

Now if you are a freelancer you will have to pay (e.g.) 720$ every year (60 * 12) either you like it or not. The only downside to this is that it’s like forcefully upgrading each year to a “new version” of the product, which will upset many users. With the old way of doing things you could perhaps still use 3DSMax 2008 or 2012 to do your work and “skip upgrades” but now this is not the case.

Hey people, I was just joking there… :stuck_out_tongue:
Anyway, SOME people will probably take a second look at Blender. Maybe they won’t like it, maybe they will not change their workflow to fit it in, but they will consider it, and I think that’s important as well.

The good news is for the small studios/freelancers that are looking for another option, because they are not going to autodesk subscription base, THIS is why is good for blender:
more small studios and freelancers using blender is going to be at the near future is BETTER, more works in blender, everywhere, more people, more support for the foundation, more online images and videos with more quality…is going on right now, more and more users.

Medium to big studios have tons of tools, even lightwave and modo are used a lot in big productions, but this is how blender can FIT in a pipeline, with more alembic, FBX, collada good support is going to be like a lego piece in a big pipeline…that is the goal,

not to replace Autodesk products, but to add blender to the studios pipeline :slight_smile:
this is why lightwave was used for 25 years in studios, because is pipeline friendly, good results and FAST, blender can beat this beast, one step at the time, blender is going right now competing VS Modo and lightwave…for this position in the pipeline inside the industry.

Remember: not to replace Autodesk products, but to add blender to the studios pipeline :slight_smile:
we need to get out of “the blender fans box” , studios use a lot of softwares, we need to ADD blender to the pipeline :slight_smile: no replace it :slight_smile:

More than 10 years ago, Blender was used in the pre-vis of a major Hollywood movie.

Now just recently, we hear that Blender was used in the pre-vis of a major Hollywood movie.

All the development that has taken place and Blender is still mainly used as a pre-vis assist tool (if the big studios use it at all), I would say it pretty much would be a lost cause to try to target these big houses because the progress made over all these years is approximately zero (that and the fact that they don’t just want an equivalent, they want the best).

However, getting Blender into more small to medium sized studios may be far more realistic (in part because the Blender Network gives evidence of that happening already and that they’re more likely to look for alternatives due to changing Autodesk policies). Even then, there’s still a few things that must be done before Blender can have a chance to permanently shed the idea of being a mere hobbyist tool which includes better respect for those who want more standard control options and smashing a roadblock built by its GPL licensing concerning proprietary plugins.

Is going to be like “gravity” or a lego brick, is not that we going to push blender to be in the big studios, is like, more users, more small studios and freelancers, more “pro” artist using blender and the numbers are growing, so is good, and THEN users can bring his favorite tool to the big studios (in the future, yes can be), but one of the MAIN reasons is file transfers between APPS. blender is still short in this part. But working forward. Alembic in gooseberry is a good sign…

A lot of small studios are already changing to blender because the $$$ Autodesk policy and the quality of blender + UI redesign :slight_smile: so more support for the blender foundation and more blender presence in internet, magazines, forums, TV etc. Colin levy next short film, ALL pixars coworkers going to see that, and check blender so is GOODDDD!!! as I say, more projects in blender, more presence, more professionals using blender…

Slow and steady blender is going up…future is coming :slight_smile:

Not that studios would drop AD, but individual artists themselves just might. There have been a few Blender and Modo comments on other communities in reaction to the news.

I have mentioned before when something goes subscription only, I just drop it. Now when I say “drop it”, I of course mean keep using the perpetual version I had until the time I need to find alternatives. When other people say they will drop AD products, I assume that is what they mean. They will just keep using the perpetual version until they find alternatives. I have nothing against subscription software when it’s simply an option. An alternative choice to perpetual licenses.

Until I got CS6 and Krita, I had been using Paint Shop Pro 9. I used Paint Shop Pro 9 from a little after its release until late 2012. Pretty good run. I never bothered with the Corel versions that came later because of some of the changes and they had some strange DRM thing called Protexis or whatever, but I had unreliable dialup internet until 2008.

As Ace mentioned, one of the major problematic areas of Blender is industry standard control schemes and proprietary plugins with GPL. Of course plugins also have the problem that we have no native plugin SDK (C/C++) etc. Since Modo had been mentioned in the list of alternatives to AD stuff, read the Modo plugin SDK description (http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/developers/). Some nice bullet points there.

GPL seems to get mentioned in a lot of threads these days, but with respect to those looking for an alternative to AD, it is relevant. Which software will have the plugin diversity and tools to support their workflow?

Blender ball is not rolling, industry wise. Tools support and plug-in support is still an issue. Also software support (CryEngine / Unreal Engine, for example).

People who realized that utilizing those tools / resources will save time and money in the long run are not looking at Blender. Even if deep in their heart they actually want to.

I mean, even I have to look at Maya LT at the moment, just because of the allegromithc texture painting tools and quick export to Unreal (I have an idea for machinima at the moment).

Although looking at the fact that I have to use local distributor instead of online and the option is either quarterly or yearly, made me dropped the idea (I purchase Lightwave 10 through distributor and the upgrade process (and other stuff) made me swore off distributor from future software purchase).

I am still using my old 3DS Max 2009 (and occasionally 2012 for some scripts and plugins). I think the newer versions of Max is pure shit tbh and they look like they target pre-school kids with their in-app tutorials.
Maya 2012 is the last version I will use, the performance drastically dropped after Maya 2013, Maya 2014 takes about two minutes to start up and over 10 seconds to close down(!?) and Maya 2015 is even worse. Softimage was the only Autodesk Software that I would still consider to upgrade if they had not killed it.

Relevant thread on CGSociety. People are quite scared about the future w.r.t. to having to pay the rent for a whole pipeline and the concrete risk of cloud-only architectures.

And one of the later posts that actually makes a pretty good point of what the future might hold for people getting out of college in their bid to eventually get more into the CG industry (if you can’t afford the subscription on top of living expenses and college debt payments, your dream is over).

The rapid development that Blender is getting now in areas important to professional users couldn’t have been timed better if this the case (what with the current and coming work on the dependency graph, particle system, painting system, realistic rendering, sculpting, modeling, ect…). Because of Blender’s present state, there’s a number of young people who will not have to go through the stress of seeing their “carriage turn back into a pumpkin” as the thread puts it.

I wonder will it help improve some areas of Blender if pros are asking tough questions about those features. Or will they get the typical open source answer “here is the source code, fork it yourself.”

Realistic outcome of this is probably less dramatic than some people think. Autodesk may lose some clients, but they may get more money nevertheless. I think money is the main motivation for subscription-based model.

2002 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!
2003 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!
2004 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!

2012 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!
2013 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!
2014 - Just wait! Blender will be a professional software soon!

To be continued …

And this is the reason why I stated that the people toasting are from The Foundry, SideFX, and, sorry, earlier I forgot Pixologic.

Sure. To be continued. Indefinitely, since there will always be someone who isn’t satisfied. Meanwhile most will just continue plugging away at their art.

If you care that much about whether or not your software is sufficiently “professional”, just rent Maya/Max already. That’s the professional thing to do, right?