A question about the future of ArtEngine

From an R&D perspective I think ArtEngine can have high value to Unity as a company, but I can't seem to understand where the market is. The model that is chosen ArtEngine seem to outprize itself out of it's market.

When I was demoed ArtEngine earlier back in last fall(?). I thought that would be nice, sort of like an alternative to Substance, Nuke, Quixel. Until I saw the price point, and I realized I can't justify the price as opposed to tailor an inhouse solution for this.

So, I'm a bit curious where the target is for ArtEngine today, and future plans, tie inns etc.

Edit:
For those curious the entry price point is $1,140 per/year, for the studio version.
edit² (updated correct prizing)

 

Id love to know the answer to this as well. Just based on the amount of threads on this subforum, is anyone actually even using artengine? You guys are going to kill the product keeping it priced like it is.

 

Thanks, looking forward to it. We maintain multiple substance suite licenses, and if this genuinely did beat substance in terms of price or features we would happily swap.

Right now the price is crazy for what you offer compared to competition, and I am sorry but it seems you are easily years behind substance suite.

With substance I get designer, painter, alchemist and source. I am not sure how you intend to compete with that when your one seat costs the same as all of that, but unless you seriously slash your prices until you actually have parity with them its going to be another thing that ends up dying off in the unity ecosystem.

This would be a shame because there is clearly an opportunity here, that is being missed.

Good luck and heres to hoping the plans for artengine when revealed, are sensible this time and in line with the rest of the industry I am sure one day you will be able to charge that amount and be seen as value, but for now you have to walk before you can run.

I mean this with love but: You are not substance, and you have some way to go before you should be charging like you are. If you look around, it seems you are not drowning in eager users, and its pretty obvious why that is right now. Heres to the future and hoping it holds something better in store.

 

I apologize, I must have misunderstood the prizing.
Although the wording might be less clear than wanted:

Monthly subscription: $333 per seat

*ArtEngine Studio requires a minimum purchase of 5 seats.

I can somewhat understand it towards AAA.
The selling point (for me evaluating this) would be AI + batching.
Those are probably the two features that makes it interesting.

For instance best fit for our studio would be 1-2 floating lic with batching, but non of the other features.
Depending a bit on other specific features (such as which type of dds compression are available, to make a specific example). But I think for now I will have a hard time justifying the a recommendation even at the same price point as substance designer. But that said, we are not an AAA, and a large cost of business is tied in software, so there is an incentive to look for alternative solutions.

I do hope the knowledge behind the hood is shared into Unity, or at least there is some bridge between teams there.
And I absolutely do think there is space for competition next to Adobe(Allegorithmic) in parametric texture creation.
I can tell you there is a need to automate large data sets, substance can do this, but they are generally aiming towards working on singular data, both is needed.

 

I've just noticed there is a GDC promo on Artengine that brings the price down to 19 USD / month:
https://store.unity.com/configure-plan/unity-artengine-promo

 

Yeah...not interested in a "limited time" promo. The entire substance suite costs me 19USD when not on offer so its still not worthit, and especially not if I am going to end up locked into a workflow using a piece of software that will quadruple in price the next year. If this is the big announcement that was mentioned in this thread, then this thing really is dead as far as longevity is concered. I am betting in a year or 2 this either gets rolled into the engine or has the plug pulled.

 

I think it's in part a test, to see if unity can get people to use it. If it will have positive result for them, it will likely stay priced this way. Notice the similar (I mean identical) pricing to the competitor.

 

Yeah, those two scenarios are also likely. Is there some big announcement looming? I'll see if this gets mentioned in the upcoming GDC keynote or associated presentations.

 

Yes apparently literally today there is meant to be more news announced regarding ArtEngine in regards to pricing etc, so fingers crossed some more info comes that alleviates worry of this disappearing into the void that unity aquisitions disappear into

 

Just watched the showcase, and they did give ArtEngine a decent air time It's not yet forgotten yehey!

 

I have to admit the demo was actually really cool. Just a shame that the price is going to be out of reach for most developers.

 

Agreed, while I certainly hope it will stay priced at 19 USD indefinitely if unity team can afford to do so. But as I'm thinking, given all the photogrammetry pipeline requirements, it is actually not overpriced even at its normal price.

 

While it was nice to see the demo, unfortunately absolutely everything shown in the demo can be done in substance suite (and could be done for a while now) for the 19USD price, so unless they remain at this price point, it will be overpriced.

For now I am going to remain a substance subscriber, but I will check back in a year or so once there are more features to entice me over. Right now I would be losing too much features swapping from substance to this, even putting price aside.

 

Absolutely. I don't see this as a replacement for substance. Maybe for one image to PBR material processing alchemist is ok, since the source file is just a color map. But if I acquire a full PBR scan of a material and want to process it to rapidly create clean tileable materials (kinda like the nVidia vMaterials, which were apparently processed with this: https://developer.nvidia.com/vmaterials), the workflows in ArtEngine seem better suited.
Again, this is totally uninformed guess based on following the videos. But I will be comparing this once I'm ready with some new photoscanning setup. I will check back here once I do...

 

Well we already do what you have mentioned using substance designer, alchmemist and the substance automation suite (which allows you to do batch processing etc). So I am still unsure where ArtEngine seems better suited - it sounds like you have not delved into the scan side of substance much (which is really powerful and has had a ton of development since 2019)

We have graphs setup now that when run using automation suite, basically turn this process into a one click operation We know that a lot of major film studios have used the same workflow, so its definately been battle tested

For more info on the batch processing side, check out: https://www.substance3d.com/substance-automation-toolkit/

 

You're right, I haven't properly tested the suite yet for automation features. I've mostly worked with manual workflow around assets, not so much reusable scanned materials. Thanks for the link on the auto toolkit.

I still hope for the best for ArtEngine to find it's use in either mine or others workflows I do sympathize with the underdogs.

 

Hey I too hope ArtEngine comes out on top, I really want them to do well! I dont think the bad pricing etc is ArtEngines fault either, more to do with unity and them still not really seeming to know exactly how to make money / what users really want and need.

I am conservatively optimistic - there is definately room for a competitor and with the right roadmap + plan they could become it. But time is short and they only have so long to find their wings - heres to hoping its soon

 

Want to beautifully upscale your textures?

https://topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai/
just $99 for a permanent license.

The Substance Alchemist option has already been mentioned.

Sorry to say that ArtEngine is probably the most misinformed and failed acquisition Unity ever made.
Competes only with that of Digital Monarch Media.

 

I assume ArtEngine must present best-in-class upscaling, filtering & texture creation (PBR style like Substance Alchemist) and therefore was priced to target big studios?!
Under Unity's umbrella it is harder to sell - a 30 day trial (edit: apparently has) would help as other software has. You would want to compare it in use to Substance Alchemist which is cheap as part of a big bundle that has a 30 day trial!

 

@ely_unity_artengine Any more updates on this? It feels like there are a lot of tumbleweeds and no real users taking part in this section of the community, I wonder if that is also a reflection on volume of sign ups? (not probing you for private info btw, that was just a thought not a question as such)

I mean maybe you only want to target massive studios with this, and if so just say so - it would be understandible! But right now with no indie/startup/growing company pricing on the horizon it just feels a bit like this is doing what it seems to be doing - gathering dust and not being used by most users here.

Its a real crying shame because a worthy competitor in this space could reach farther into industries that unity itself could not on its own (think people who are not using unity but need this type of tech), but again if its not going to be acecssible by "boots on the ground" (people who think the pricing is ridiculous because it is compared to anything else and they are not yet at the level to pay "enterprise" pricing for things due to earning below X amount of money to justify that pricing ) you are not going to have many regular users talking about it and spreading the word like they do substance and quixel, and I am pretty sure that will be detrimental to your survival as a product in the long run. Pretty sure they would not be where they are today (standard among big studios, small and individuals alike) without users willingly marketing their products for them.

I know I have spoken about the value of substance at length before to other users here and elsewhere, as I always felt like the pricing allowed me to grow to the point I make profits and can afford the higher tiers, rather than pricing me out entirely at the very start (from a value vs cost point of view, not affordability). So that makes me and many users evangelise their product due to getting our moneys worth and feeling satisfied.

Just to note in case you think that its a case that the people speaking here "are unable to afford this pricing", I can actually easily afford ArtEngine now, probably most people chiming in this forum can - its not about that, its about why would you pay that amount when you know you can pay less and get a product that does the same stuff but has been around way longer and is considered the "industry standard"? So no matter how much I grow and earn I would never willingly pay more, for the same/less.

Anyway wishing the ArtEngine team best of luck and hoping something a little more sensible comes out in the future before interest wains completely. Some really cool updates lately to substance designer, alchemist and the substance automation suite - no pricing increase on their side either.

 

That looks cool.