3dsMax INDIE version - [ limited to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US ]

• A. full max version, not limited.
• B. this is a 'pilot program' available for a limited time as they're "gauging demand"
AKA: the offer is available now and may be removed soon.. who knows

For other info, please see the following LINK: https://area.autodesk.com/3ds-max-indie/
FOR EVERYONE WHO IS IN SOME OTHER AREA ON EARTH AND WANTS TO HAVE ACCESS ->>
You can and should tell them that you want this.. otherwise your voice will not be heard. They claim to be listening.


Maybe go to Twitter and include;
@Adsk3dsMax #3dsMaxIndie
.. and politely inform them that you want to have it in your country.
- Keep it professional please, don't ruin the potential for others who want to have this available to them.

 

For anyone curious that doesn't want to go through the process (you follow the link and then follow yet another link) to find out the price is basically $250/yr. Additionally it's limited to one license per user or organization and only if you're making less than $100,000/yr.

Be careful if you sign up as the fine print mentions that it will charge you full price ($1545/yr) when it renews after the first year if you don't turn off automatic renewal. Have to wonder how many people will accidentally pay full price at renewal by not reading the fine print.

I'd be curious to know how many people think this is a kneejerk reaction to the release and popularity of Blender 2.8.

Edit: Subscription price corrected.

 

I've been waiting for this for years. But after reading what @Ryiah said, i'm no longer interested in it.

EDIT: Now the question is - if you turn off auto-renew can you get the indie version again?

 

I think the Blender thing is obvious.

@Ryiah ..where are you seeing 3,500(usd?) as renewal .. because at yearly rate is 1,545usd renewal. .. **unless they make changes to lower/raise pricing.

 

I was just going with the last number that I remembered which was $3,495. My last interaction with this program was back in the days of Windows XP. I'll correct the post above.

 

I guess it depends on the success of this pilot program. If enough people are interested and they see substantial income from it, they will establish it as a normal subscription and will provide auto-renewal on the indie price.
But until then, you have an entire year to play with it.

I don't like the limitation of one copy per organization. It is really unnecessary.

 

Agreed. Realistically if you're making less than $100,000 as an organization you likely have bigger problems.

 

Something tells me this has been made for quite some time but with the news of blender they knew they had to compete somehow... I've always preferred 3Ds Max over any other 3d program because I grew up in the days of using GMax which was before Autodesk bought 3Ds max from Discreet. Gmax which you can still freely get today for free on Turbosquid. Which is like I suppose the Sculptris to ZBrush comparison - you get what you pay for lol.

 

Well, I have different reasons to not to like it. I see the potential downside of it. Just imagine our two friends at Filthy Peasants. If both members of the duo learn 3DS Max in order to put out small, dirty objects quickly, because they want to move on their 4X game endeavor and they form a small company together. Ops, they only can have one indie copy of the software while they have very low income. So it does not help small, but growing indies properly.
Unless they somehow count as separate persons for this reason and what is the definition of "organization" in this context. I guess I should read their license...

 

Some quick searching came up with some additional information to think about. Ubisoft recently announced that they were switching to Blender as their main digital content creation tool. Can you guess what they were using prior to that?

https://area.autodesk.com/life-in-3...s-possibilities-ubisoft039s-creative-process/

 

Yup by switching they are missing out a large chunk of money. Perhaps not a 75% of income chunk, but nevertheless a sizeable chunk enough to notice. So then they finally release a 3Ds Max indie which was probably made 5 years ago (not sure if it's dumbed down like Maya LT), never left the main page yet just disgusted to click past it lol... Just seems rather convenient that it's released just days after the Ubi announcement, makes you wonder how long they've been holding onto this ammunition.

 

Regardless of their reasons, it's cool to have more tools priced accessibly for small developers.

Remember that when Maya LT came out it has some restrictions that really crippled it, too, which were relaxed after a few weeks. This makes sense, because you can relax restrictions but you can't (so easily) add new ones after people have already purchased what you're offering.

To be fair, this "fine print" is in block capitals at high contrast right underneath the "Get 3DS Max Indie" button at the top of the page. I don't think they're trying to hide this.

 

I like Blender 2.8. It does everything Max does and for free.

 

On the other hand they're not disabling the auto renew for you, and considering how many fun topics we've had about some people not realizing they're stuck with a twelve month subscription for Unity I'm willing to bet that there will be people who don't notice it until it's too late. Plus it's only shown there. The store page makes no mention of it.

Speaking of the store I noticed you can totally increase the number of copies you want to purchase beyond just one.

 

I kind of get the impression this was just rushed out, without any updates to their infrastructure to support this specific deal.

 

Its still too expensive to compete with blender 2.8. I was so skeptical of blender 2.8 but after using it for a few weeks in RC stage, we genuinely have no reason to go back to max or maya.

Anyone tempted by this, please try out blender 2.8 first and potentially save yourself a lot of money in the long run!

The more people support blender the closer we will get to a world free of evil (sorry I mean autodesk).

 

Well, you know, 3Ds Max at least not built on predatory micro-transaction practices and does not live on that dirty money.

You are paying for Blender as well. Maybe not directly, but through Epic and through Ubisoft and through other donors. And these two are among the worst offenders. I wouldn't be proud of their support. And honestly, I hated Blender old UI, it was confusing, it was trash, borderline unusable. It was a very long term joke. Now they changed it, finally, now they are funded by two questionable companies.

Maybe Autodesk charge you for THEIR software, maybe you think it is too much, but they are honest and they do what they think is feasible and more or less maintainable. Without predatory practices.

 

My thoughts on this:




If you go for this now instead of learning Blender 2.80 I think you'll regret it, and I won't hold back on told-you-so's...

 

Funding that is entirely unnecessary to maintain the project seeing as it is open source and was in development for years with very little funding. I can understand not wanting to support a company that you disapprove of but this is an extreme that only a conspiracy theorist would care about.

 

You can call me crazy, I care about it. I also care about how they made their games: extortion of workforce at Epic for example.
I'm not saying I will completely ignore Blender or even Epic forever. But I don't have to like them because of these practices.

I do not buy any games which went Epic exclusive also. I don't download free stuff from Epic. I don't care. It's disgusting, I don't want to touch it at the moment.

Also, I don't agree with the notion that Autodesk is evil. They are not. And it would be awesome if this indie program would take off. 3DS Max is an awesome piece of software and $250 per year is not a horrible amount of money.
I'm not an artist myself, so I will think about it subscribing (stretching my free time too thin already), if I were, I wouldn't even think.

 

Evidence is going to be needed for me to even remotely believe this statement as every time I've researched into the development of Fortnite nothing of the sort was suggested in any way.

If you hate the thought of anyone getting involved with Epic Games or Ubisoft then you shouldn't do a search for them in relation to Autodesk. Because Autiodesk has partnered with them many times in the past decade for many reasons.

If you're going to make a big deal out of Blender getting donations with no strings attached then you need to make a big deal out of Autodesk partnering or you're just going to come across as biased and unreasonable.

 

https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/23/18507750/fortnite-work-crunch-epic-games

I don't hate everything what Epic ever did. I played Unreal single player for example and I loved it. And it still does not have anything to do with current things. I also wouldn't ignore the obvious choice if for some reason I would have to choose UE4 for my future projects.

 

Where do you think Autodesk is getting their money from? You can be sure that all the big scumbag corporations that you hate so much (and maybe understandably so) have paid many many more millions to Autodesk than they have donated to Blender. It is absolutely ridiculous to avoid Blender as if they just had "taken dirty blood money" and paint Autodesk like saints that can do no evil.

Also what I've heard about Autodesk's business practices is firmly rooted in scumbag territory too, so... Seems irrational and hypocritical to me to take the position that you're taking. You definitely should read their fineprint before you subscribe to this. But suit yourself. I don't intend to follow up on this discussion.

 

Thanks for the link. It was an interesting read but at the same time crunch isn't just an Epic Games phenomenon and while they may have taken it to an extreme I wonder how many companies have a similar degree of it but news of it simply never leaves their companies.

Regardless of all of that though I can't and won't hold it against an organization when they receive a donation from one of these companies, and if I'm going to start holding it against them then in the interests of being fair I need to hold it against every company involved with them. If I blame Blender then I need to blame Autodesk too.

 

Probably more than we would like to see. But I can act on what I know and I won't accuse anyone without the slightest evidence or anecdote at least.
I really hope that unionization will come to fruition because right now, it's a pretty gruesome picture we see, it's somewhat similar to what we heard about the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in terms of workers' rights.

Luckily I didn't say that anywhere.

And luckily I didn't say that either. They can. And I'm pretty sure they did. But not with this pricing.

 

By the way, if we work with this logic, then we can say that we're paying twice for 3ds max. Once when we buy a game made with it, and once when we purchase the program itself. Since Blender is open source software we only pay once.

 

Ahem. And? Asking for payment is evil now? WTF?

And? What's the problem with it? There are many things in life which you (or me) pay for multiple ways.

 

Fixed that for you. Because that is literally the argument you've made against Blender.

 

Please point out where did I say that Blender is evil. Seriously. Read my statements again. I pointed out the questionable donors to put this whole "autodesk is evil", "3DS Max is garbage" sentiment in different light. Nothing more.
I didn't call anyone to avoid Blender, I didn't say that anyone should pick up 3DS Max. And I didn't start to trash Blender in its own thread.

 

After reading it yet again, I've read it multiple times now trying to ascertain what some of the statements were intended to mean, it feels like it was poorly worded at best. The first sentence of the post and the last sentence of the large block of text feel like they were aimed at Blender. This is based off of the context being solely 3ds max and Blender.

You may not be making a straight up statement but everything about your posts is suggesting it.

 

Well, nothing new, English is still not my first language.

Aimed at people who are painting Blender as the second coming and they're trying to do it by smearing other software and company. (Which always rubs me on the wrong way... I know, personal flaw)
Nothing is pure white and nothing is pitch black in a capitalist world. It's fifty shades of gray for us.

Well, then I did a bad job indeed. It wasn't my intention. In my book, there is nothing seriously wrong with Blender (software) after this update (the past UI were truly garbage), nothing wrong with 3DS.
I think accepting money from AAA studios like Epic and Ubisoft is wrong (personal opinion, you don't have to like it or agree with it), but obviously Autodesk is also a corporation with its capitalist flaws. Obviously no one is pure evil.

 

I rather stay from getting involved into this battle conversation, but @Ryiah is right.
I am not best fan of previous Blender editions and love Autodesk software. Yet in my opinion @Ryiah is exactly on the point, of how I as well interpret the @Lurking-Ninja message. Lets say, badly wording.

 

I never would have been able to notice if you hadn't said anything. You're better at it than many people that started with it as their first language.

 

I'll probably end up getting it in a few days. Because despite the stupid stuff. Max is forever in my heart. Simply the UI/UX, workflows, etc is simply worth any amount of money in the world too me. I do agree that Autodesk has poor business practices. But man, I'm literally just simply comfortable with working in max.

But how dumbed down it is, I can't say... I did try to look into it, didn't see any compare links, as soon as you click buy or whatever it goes straight to payment information.

 

@Lurking-Ninja, I think it's a good thing to consider what's behind the products you use and whether or not they should be supported. I wish more people did that! However, in the case of Blender, since we don't pay to use it I can't imagine how our choosing to use it over other products in any way supports the questionable practices of others who've chosen to donate to it.

Regardless of what you think of their other activities, I definitely think that supporting Blender is a positive move by Epic and Ubisoft. Increased support for accessibly licensed software (doesn't have to be open source) is of benefit to many people. And, while I suspect that some of Blender's recent donors may have the ulterior motive of ultimately hopping off Autodesk's licensing treadmill, that's also of benefit to many people even if they stick to using that software (one example being the very topic of this thread).

 

After a quick google search. 3ds max indie is apparently the full version - not dumbed down.
And apparently there's a Maya Indie version now too. https://area.autodesk.com/maya-indie/

 

Curious. Maya was already affordable if you bought Maya LT. Speaking of which wasn't Maya LT originally $35/mo? I just checked the website for it and it's now down to $250/yr.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/subscribe

 

I don't know about US pricing, but here in Aus it's $45/mo or $355/yr, and the monthly rate has always been more than the yearly rate.

 

That is quite interesting. There's literally no reason to get Maya LT except for maybe for organizations with more than 1 person. Which is probably why they kept it. But eh, you get so much more value from Maya Indie (if it's the same as Max and is full version).

 

I think I'll be getting Maya. I tried blender 2.8 and really wanted to like it, but after a week, I just couldn't get into it. I think I'm the only person who actually loves Maya lol. (Don't confuse that with Autodesk, which I don't love) Just something about the workflow in Maya, and having some small but important scripts I've written for Maya over the years to make it work the way I like.
I really do like what blender is doing for the community, and anyone who can use it I am very happy for them , and I've very happy that Maya is finally at price i can afford without the limitations that LT had.

 

Yeah same here for 3Ds Max. I'm just really comfortable and confident on how to use it. I agree as well - Blender has done a lot for a lot of people, I haven't yet tried the new version I may try it eventually..

Not a fan of Autodesk either, but man - so comfortable with Max lol.
Now we need a full ZBrush Indie lol.

I do have ZBrush core - love it so amazing. But man it's missing out on so many of the amazing features, however in the new ZBrush core update for this year they did give us Core users some basic Decimation Master, just a dumbed down version, can't set the decimate numbers but gives like 4 choices, 25K, 50K, etc verts.

 

ZBrush's full license is only $30/mo if you sign up for six months at a time.

https://store.pixologic.com/zbrush-2019/

 

For me personally, I dont like autodesk much and as a programmer, its not difficult for me to rewrite our tech art toolchain scripts for blender as its python and open. In fact most of our max and maya scripts are already converted it took no time at all. As such, I swapped to blender. But for some that may not be an option and thats fine.

Just try to remember that autodesk are not a nice company for consumers, and by purchasing their products you are keeping them and their practises around. Anyone thanking autodesk for the new indie license option should remember that they have been pushed for years to do it and ONLY did it once a competitor forced them to.

If epic, ubisoft and netflix had not doubled down hard on using blender in production this year, they would still be charging you an arm and a leg for the use of what is in a lot of industries, required software.

 

Oh wow, when did the new licensing models come into play? At the start of 2019 the subscriptions didn't exist I don't think.

But at the same time I hate subscriptions, it keeps you locked into renting rather than owning. So if one gets stuck paying 30 a month for years you could have simply just bought it and saved money lol. Unless these subscriptions allow you to essentially (rent-to-own). Which I don't understand why this isn't such a bigger practice, so many more people would be getting said products if this was authorized. Heck they could treat it the same way as any other rent-to-own company and even charge interest on it so they simply get a little more for the convenience.

 

Well for me its no different buying a 2019 version and it being outdated a year later and buying a 2020 version etc etc, to renting and having the latest version always. Your still paying a year for a year of content, except perpetual you can keep that singular version (which I know is useful to many, just I like to be bleeding edge)

Basically if your happy staying on 2019 forever then sure buying is better value, otherwise its no better value than subscribing.

I too dont like subscriptions but the entire industry has moved to software as a service and unfortunately to get the latest greatest often sub is a decent option.

I sub to zbrush, sub to substance suite, and sub to adobe. No more autodesk subs for me, but soon substance will be available on adobe cc and then I am back to only 2 subscriptions

For this little inconvenience I get latest versions, patches, and it costs me like £100 total a month for what is a TON of software.

And soon Ill be subbing to unity plus too (Already have pro subs at work, but I mean personally sub to unity)

 

ZBrush lets you update to the newest versions, I actually asked them that before I got core out of curiosity. They said at the time at least that for example let's say there's a ZBrush 2020 edition.. Then a 2021 edition comes out - you get that with your perpetual license as well. But the support agent said they had no plans to change that but it may change in the future.

So it's sorta open ended in the future I suppose. But at least currently you can keep upgrading.

 

Thats awesome! In that case I will change to perpetual XD

 

I'd like to try and interpret some of the undertones that may be involved with this Blender vs Autodesk debate (Because that's fun!). First, Epic has received massive funding from Tencent, right? Is Tencent really that untrustworthy? This is what I don't know. As far as the Fortnite crunch article, I think that's just a product of the industry and their success, and their gameplay and business model. It's tragic, but I don't think it makes Epic an inherently dishonest company. In a more realistic angle, I'd be more concerned about what sort of support comes out of Blender development from this funding, in regards to the Unreal vs Unity perspective. It's possible that Blender can get Unreal-favorable changes that would be harmful to Unity development (unless of course UT starts throwing Epic funding + $1 to them).

First, thanks @Ryiah for doing the research, it really was difficult to nav those pages.

Seriously? Is this true? If it is, then I don't see how this is such a great deal. It's a deal breaker. Then everyone has to stop with this $250/year pricing for 3ds Max/Maya. It's $250 for the FIRST YEAR. Good luck moving forward beyond that. It's like when you rent a storage unit, sure it's $1 for that first month, and what, 200% that from that point on? I've written craploads of scripts for Blender that have saved me hundreds if not thousands of developer hours, and I wouldn't jump ship for that. Even if people bought into this FIRST YEAR savings, those people would spend that year building up their dev pipeline, or if you're a hobbyist and are not spending time on that pipeline, you'd just be building S*** for a year. Then what? Poor hobbyist, you've wasted a year of your life with a tool that you now have to spend $1500 a year on. You always have to consider the long game. This is an investment, and if you want a toy for $250 for ONE year, go right ahead, but Blender 2.8 is probably a better toy to play with for $0 for ONE year + forever.

Re: Maya LT. If you ever decided to go Autodesk, I still think this is a viable option. Beginning creators always want ALL the bells and whistles. Rendering, fur/hair simulation, etc. You don't need all that for game development. Maya LT has the right amount of features to make you productive with Unity or any engine.

And on a more meta level, I've been convinced and have accepted that this world is run on drug money, so it doesn't even really matter one way or another.

Don't you just love speculating?!?!

 

Cinema 4D has a new subscription model of pricing coming next month too, for R21, and they ditched the existing different product tiers. Some will gain from this and some probably wont be happy. I am happy with the new approach and pricing, because it happens to serve me better.

https://www.maxon.net/en/buy/

I do intend to fiddle around with Blender 2.8 a bit too, I will give it a fair chance, but there are some parts of Cinema 4D that I dont want to be without, especially since they added volumetric modelling.

 

To be fair, they say that it's auto renew right there on the page, kind of hard to miss, and that if you don't want it, turn it off as soon as you sign up...
Adobe, and I think Unity also have auto renew turned on when you sign up at first.
(Kind of crappy, but at least they don't hide it, like Adobe did to me)

And i think they will change it, (ie, they will keep it to $250 a year) they just rushed this out, due to Blender 2.8, and are seeing what interest Maya and Max indie has...

(That's what i hope anyway)