MayaLT / Max / Maya prices slashed

Maya LT 2015 is now £25 per month (£28.75 inc vat)... Max and Maya 2015 are £165+vat, down from £210+.

Only noticed as I was looking at Maya 2015 prices on Friday, then when I looked again this morning they'd all been slashed. Lucky I didn't buy anything two days ago!

 

I'm sticking with Blender...lol.

 

I may subscribe in the fall when I don't have so much work outside.

Sounds like their subscriber level isn't what they hoped. Basically they need to grandfather out all the 'cracked' versions that are being used, all the old versions that were actually paid for, and eliminate AutoDesk Edu or at least charge what they are charging for Maya LT monthly.

 

Does anyone know if the new Maya LT 2015 is worth using? I heard bad things about how they limited it for the 2014 version, but it seems like they've improved it for 2015.

Blender is great, but if Maya LT has a sub price it might be worth switching. If it's still too crippled to be useful, then I might as well just stick with Blender.

 

there is no polygon limit with unity now, mel is included, its more and more opened after each version

 

It's even cheaper if you go annual. Nice...

 

It needs to... Autodesk so far are the slowest to react to the market. And really - compared to what you get for example from modo their pricing and licensing scheme is still pretty inferior from what I know about it.
Maya and Max rely very much in their name and prevalance.

 

That's not entirely true. Maya and Max are still the premium tools of choice for game art. Max has failed to grow in some key areas in recent versions and AD botched up the roadmap quite a bit - but it was way ahead of the curve in the first place, and has features and a workflow that a lot of other applications (such as Modo) still haven't either caught up with or come up with a better alternative.

Maya has gone through a few minor identity crises, nothing as bad as Max, but it's on top of it's game today.

I've had a real rollercoaster relationship with Autodesk over the years, and it's true their corporate policies have left a sour taste in many mouths, but when people talk about "industry class" they're usually referring to Max and Maya (and, RIP, XSI).

Licensing and pricing are different fish. You have to measure what you need against what you have to pay. In that respect, right now, Maya LT is terrific value. In fact, it's actually cheaper than Unfold3D (which is included).

 

Maya LT sounds like a indie dream come true. But, what if they don't get enough profit and discontinue after 2 years. Are you going to buy Maya or forget what you have learnt so far ?

Too far fetched? Not really. The lowering of the price of Maya LT is certainly a sign that it's not selling at par ADSK's plan. There's no other reason for lowering the price.

 

Well there still is the reason of customer satisfaction....
Nevertheless leasing Maya LT does not sound like a good deal to me personally.

 

There was actually another Maya LT in years gone by (back when Maya was a lot more expensive). LT didn't fit the market too well then though - more the point, there wasn't much of one.

There's a huge market for Maya LT now though, and the new approach is a lot more solid and satisfying. I've just started using it to do some stuff with my brother (you can't share files between LT and full Maya), and it's pretty good...better than expected. There's very little missing that anyone who's not a seasoned Maya vet would notice. I like the Send to Unity option ...shame you can't enable it in the big version.

I'd not read anything into the lowering of the price. It could be because it's *more* popular, rather than less, and a way to scoop up people sitting on the fence. Could also be to prevent someone else dropping their prices to undercut them - we've seen that happen recently, and the fallout that follows. Could just be trying to win back hearts and minds... if so, good. About time. But it's hardly a death knell.

I don't think we'll see it vanish though...they appear to be putting a lot of eggs in the games business atm (see the latest post on the BitSquid acquisition).

 

Maya now has Unfold3D built in. Ppl have no idea how amazing that thing is...

 

Totally. It's like knocking £300 off the price. Or giving you back £60.

 

i am so tempted to get maya lt.. i still work with maya 2010 and cannot afford to upgrade to 2015. the only thing i would miss is mental ray rendering i suppose.

 

With Bonus Tools, it's even better: (9:25)

 

This is rather excellent news and very welcome. $30 a month is rather fair and they continue to update the app nicely. I am rather impressed. What I am not impressed with is the viewport navigation... especially the "Tumble" feels very outdated and not up to standard. Apart from that, very cool deal.

 

Twenty dollars a month with annual commitment, definitely more than fair.

 

Better still, there's no annual commitment, you can cancel at any time.

 

Really? I didn't go to the checkout so I'm not certain, but it gave me the impression that quarterly or annual (which is where the price came down to $20/mo) were paid up front, and I wouldn't expect to get my money back if I cancelled.

In any case, I do think this is looking to be an excellent deal now. I don't need all of Maya, and I've bummed around a fair bit with a bunch of cheaper tools but (Blender aside) they've all had pretty significant issues which limit how much time I'm willing to invest in them (which to me is more important than how much they cost). I'd happily get a month of this to see how it rolls, and if it works for me switch over to annual.

In fact, I might even sign up for a month this week...

 

you have Monthly option when you subscribe ( which anyway is valid only from online store ).
I did subscribe to it when it was still 2014 and I am just paying every month..

and as other said , it improve regarding feature version after version.

 

I also saw a monthly option, it was just priced at $30/mo instead of the mentioned $20/mo. Or do you mean an option to pay monthly on an annual plan with the annual pricing?

There could be currency confusion going on here. I was looking at Aussie pricing, which I expect would be a few dollars more than US pricing.

 

Well I am paying in yen which is 4,320Y / month , which is in fact like 40$, while paying a year ( 35 640 yen ) bring back
the price to ~ 30$ / month , so you may be not fool about your 30$/mo ^^

either way in my case I am fine with it

 

Let's not go crazy with wild what-if scenarios here. It's not like Autodesk has ever discontinued a well-received and much praised product because it failed to meet some bean counter's sales targets.

Oh wait.

 

It's USD $30 (or £25 in the UK). If you pay sales tax (VAT) you might get it cheaper via Steam - save a wopping £3.75 in the UK.

Personally, I'd give it a go for a month and if you really like it and plan to use it as your main DCC, get an annual sub as it's a lot cheaper, ~2.5 months discount -- though the annual and quarterly subs aren't available on Steam.

 

Ah, cool. I mean, I knew it was in USD, but here in Australia we're pretty used to getting arbitrarily raised prices even if we're still paying in USD.

 

Well, it's no secret SoftImage don't sell well.
Game makers wannabe always loved Max/Blender while Dreamworks/ILM fans are Maya and ZBrush fanatics.
Autodesk tried all they could, I remember that Metal Gear Solid 4 marketing about SoftImage... Still, no sales.
At least not enough, so yeah Maya LT may be doomed if nobody buys subs; but the actual Maya complete, it is not going anywhere.

 

Yes, they are desperate and giving away nice freebies for now, like Epic. You would need to be more than naive to think ADSK acts on things like winning hearts and minds.These guys are not oriented towards social service at least. They are into destroying competition and monopolizing the market by incurring a short term loss. I sincerely hope Unity will not be shaken by this evil plan by their competition.

History is the your ultimate teacher and friend. If you don't learn from that you never will.

50$, 30$ ... I won't be surprised if they give it away for free with a royalty cut. If it takes Modo and Blender out of the competition.

[ BTW, have they exposed full rigging toolset and the api, last time I checked, they didn't. So how are you going to use third party plugins like TSM? Without third party tools beasts like Maya and Max are almost crippled. So is Maya LT. So, Maya users have to forget their favorite tools when they switch to LT.
Oh wait. I remember, ADSK have turned good. So expect more charity in the coming months. Best of luck.]

 

You're funny.

Anyways, I really douby LT is aimed at users who need everything a full Maya license has to offer. Fact is, there's plenty of people like me who don't need most of that stuff. I literally don't care if the animation tools aren't there - I couldn't use them if they were! And if I were buying seats for a studio, lets say one guy in 4 needs animation tools... why would I not save 85% on the license costs for everyone else?

You seem to be mocking it based on the idea that it doesn't make sense for existing full Maya users to switch down. The fact is, though, it wouldn't make even the slightest bit of sense for Maya to offer something for that - it's literally downgrading customers, turning people who give them thousands of dollars a year into people who give them hundreds. What business in its right mind would ever want to do that? No, it's about getting people like me, who currently give them nothing, to instead give them a couple of hundred bucks a year.

Also, it makes sense for them to start out at a relatively high price / low feature point and then improve those things over time, because it means that it essentially auto-tunes itself to the market - because we'll all jump in when the price/feature point reaches what we want, and when they're getting the income they want they can just... stop adding stuff.

 

Yep, even if LT does get discontinued one day, you have valuable skills that can transfer directly to full Maya, which is harder to say with SoftImage ... you have skill, but you still need to remap your thinking and workflow to a 'lesser' application (all the hardcore SI users I've met and worked with see other applications as a step down ).

 

And nearly $2000 per year still in your pocket. Depending on how long it lasts, the "savings" might even be enough to buy you a perpetual seat of whatever you want to use next.

I mean, really, the marketplace is objectively better for prospective customers with this option available.

 

Maya LT isn't aimed at Maya users - the file formats aren't even compatible. It's for indies and (lesser extent, as it's still commercial) hobby users.

History being the teacher, Maya (and it's pre-AD incarnations, Alias | Wavefront) has always been the top dog, and still is. There's not much to learn other than "if you're serious about animation, you should learn Maya".

Don't forget it's not just about numbers for a lot of people who are serious about CG. Art is a passion for many - I have licenses for Max, Maya, Houdini, Modo and dozens of smaller things such as SpeedTree, Marmoset Toolbag, CrazyBump, Zbrush, Substance Designer, Painter, and on and on and on. Max is the *only* one registered to the company, the rest are personal purchases. It's my hobby, my career and life's work that I'm looking after, and every single one is used for both play and for making a living.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's ok to have gripes and it's ok to not like a company - but even crappy companies sell good stuff. Don't miss out on a good steak because you don't like the cook.

 

It's a fair price if you ask me.
And rigging, animation and UV unwrapping is better than what Blender offers at the moment.

I'm not not fond of Maya's modeling workflow though.

 

As I've said before, Maya LT is a god damn good deal right now. Even with the handicaps. No arguments on that.

What I don't really like is the trend of all companies going subs and proprietary format. You get off the sub, you can't even open your old files. It's better for the companies, to fight piracy and stuff. But its a complete control over the finances of your users. And it's about milking more that the price of the software itself.

Whether the software industry going from product to service is a good thing, only time will tell. F2P is already ruling the games, but is that really ethical? Right now, it's the same story with the software industry. While we are celebrating the free meals, people like me will always be there to see a flip side of it.

[Robot circuit breakdown... sounding funny...stops ADSK bashing and lifts off]

 

Yeah I don't like the branching file formats myself - I mentioned a few posts up that I had to buy LT in order to do some stuff with my brother. I can stomach just buying a month's sub to have some fun, but it does leave a sour taste that the two applications are segregated, despite paying for both.

Side Effects get around this by offering to convert all your "Apprentice" version files to commercial format, though that's a one-off offer, and they have a smaller new user uptake to worry about. To be fair though, this is going from a non-commercial version to commercial, so it's acceptable.

Seeing as LT and Maya complete are both fully functional commercial applications, there's less space to argue. Can you imagine if Unity (free) projects were incompatible with Unity Pro? There'd be an uproar.

 

It's not really a free meal though, is it? We're still paying for it, and it's still not the same level of tool that's at the higher-level industry standard. For people like me that's a win-win - I get access to the core bits of a cool piece of software (Photoshop, now Maya, for ages Unity which has been free for the basic version) to learn on and benefit from, they get more money from me directly than they otherwise would, and the skills I grow mean they're the vendors more likely to benefit from my future employers.

I'm not seeing the downside here. As far as I can tell this isn't freemium crap. It's genuine products at affordable prices, backed by business models that seem to have a decent stab at actually working.

The only real risk I see is that this could become a "race to the bottom". As long as these tools are in use by businesses who can make rational choices, though, I suspect that there'll always be room for premium tools at comparatively premium prices, because business customers should understand that the licensing cost is only the tip of the iceberg anyway.

 

Wait... so you can't use common file formats like FBX or something? That's definitely a sour taste indeed. Not enough to put me off, but definitely something to be wary of.

 

I'm not sure what a race to the bottom would look like with pro level 3D applications. We've sort of already experienced it, in that i.e. Maya and Houdini were once more expensive than a first time buyer mortgage (of the period), and now you can use both for less than the cost of the average mobile phone contract. And both tools are are now *way* better than when they cost more than your home. In that sense, it's potentially good for everyone so long as the software doesn't suffer, and the prices reflect growth rather than (as you imply, irrational) knee-jerk reactions.

The VFX market is experiencing it's own shakeup in recent times - this might reflect why AD have turned the big guns on the lower-end games market, which is booming (AAA isn't dead, but it's like a few guys in a room full of indies), so we may be in the early stages of a pricing/strategy rethink as DCC vendors try to reposition themselves to cover a broader target audience.

FBX yes, .ma/.mb (native ascii/binary) no.

 

uh oh autodesk goin to be a direct and serious unity competitor now, http://gamasutra.com/view/news/218983/Autodesk_acquires_Bitsquid_3D_game_engine.php

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/bitsquid-acquired-by-autodesk-the-game-engine-war-continues.250790/

 

They have no choice.

The 3D and gaming market is in a bubble that is about to burst (much like housing markets bubble up and burst).

There is a rush and massive influx of people scurrying to create something and sell, in the hopes of profit. This has caused a overflow of everything from games to tools to create them. Supply has greatly exceeded demand, so now its the purchasers that have the power to demand lower price points, and the companies that dont conform to those demands will be left in the dust as focus shifts elsewhere.

When the bubble fully does burst, it will be really ugly, and only a few will be left standing.

 

?

Bubbles come about from a surplus of something that is greatly over-valued.

The value of software lies in what people skilled in it's use get out of it - a return on their own investment. So long as software remains valuable, at any price point, there is no industry-wide doom and gloom story to be had.

 

A bubble can be either something fueled by a thing that is overvalued or it can be fueled by a thing that is undervalued.

So a race-to-the-top or a race-to-the-bottom are all bubbles that burst.

Gaming and 3d fall into the race-to-bottom bubble

 

I somehow suspect that point of view is driven by some half-baked media hyperbole bumbling around the Internet lately.

I haven't done any real analysis, but my on-the-surface impression is that over the past few years it's got far easier to make and distribute games. Some people have jumped on the bandwagon for the sake of profit rather than for the sake of the craft, without any particular skill, talent or passion for the field and without relevant business expertise to amplify others.

Those people are starting to realise that "making games" and "making money from games" are different, and while the former has gotten easier the latter has not. As such, many of them will move on to The Next Big Thing, where they think the easy money is now.

If I'm right about that, it's not a "bubble" and there's nothing to "burst" about it.

 

Let's stay on topic here folks shall we? If you want to discuss the "Bubble" that is or isn't going to burst open up a new thread

 

Maya/Max are still still overpriced for regular game devs. Most game devs do not use all advanced features from Maya or Max, what regularly come with them. Yes, some features are great for movie studious or so, but not all are for game dev. Usually you can do with Blender almost everything what you can do with Maya or Max for game dev, so is just a matter of taste or UI.

 

That's pretty much the purpose of Maya LT, at the "shop floor" level anyway.

There's no straight definition for "regular dev", as long as there are roles, i.e. an environment artist, a character artist, a character animator, a lighting rigger, and a technical artist all use different parts of a 3D application in different ways, and to different degrees.

Even in small studios there's always someone who ventures out of the usual modelling tools - dynamics, cloth and fur all get used in cinematics, and there's no shortage of modelling and realtime-targetted animation tricks to be had from baking cinematic quality dynamics.

The Blender vs The World argument/debate has been done to death, so don't take offence if I dodge it

 

Still no API access beyond the antiquated MEL scripting language. I have to seriously wonder who they talked to when making decisions about what functionality to leave on the cutting room floor.

I've never worked in a Maya pipeline that wasn't heavily augmented with custom plug-ins, and when the Python bindings appeared the number of plugins and scripts used exploded. The thought of being restricted to a stripped down off the shelf version of Maya sends chills of terror down my spine at any price.

 

Thanks for this thread! I looked at MayaLT and it looks interesting. I use modelling programs to make a few small simple things, a house or two, something I can't find elsewhere, etc. I use Blender and it is fantastic but because I only use it once every few months, every time I open it, I sit and start at it, move and click my mouse and realize I have forgotten how to use it! It just isn't intuitive to me. My experience is with more CAD based programs and I just can't grasp Blender over the long term. I have an artist who prefers it above anything else and even my offer of MayaLT did not excite her.

MayaLT looks as though it were made for someone like me. I watched videos and it looks like something I can use. I don't need all the extras and in fact, I rather like the minimalism compared to the busy Blender panels. So, for non-artists like me, for those of us who can't afford a full suite from AD, and for those who don't need the extra bells and whistles, this actually looks perfect.

AD may finally get some money out of me!