I have noticed that 3ds max will pull an Anima 6 license at launch, regardless of whether you are using Anima or not in the scene. This presents a big problem for us. Anybody having a similar issue?
Same issue here. Windows 11, 3dsmax 2025, Vray 7, Anima 6.0.1. Reboot computer, open 3dsmax and the Chaos license manager shows my computer using an Anima license without Anima being open.
Same here, Anima licensing is still a mess, I was really hoping all the licensing issues will be gone after moving onto Chaos server.
If anima is installed in workstation mode, simply opening 3ds max locks the anima license (even if anima project is not even present in the file). I believe this is a bug?
I understand that if anima project is present in the 3ds max file that has been open it again should only trigger a node mode? Full seat should only be triggered upon opening of Anima Studio?
For now, on the PC where we installed anima in node mode, everything is as expected though, so license is not triggered upon opening 3ds max.
It makes sense to pull a license in 3ds max or Cinema 4D if you are USING Anima to drop content into your scene. In fact, if you use the Anima Drop, it launches an Anima window. But pulling a license in when you launch 3ds max or Cinema 4D will make the tool useless to all the studios (mostly small) who are limited to a certain number of licenses.
Same here, this don’t make sense at all.
Same here. The new licensing system makes it uncontrolable, how many license to you realy need… When may colleague opens a few 3ds max instances, all of the anima license is occupied…
Is this truly not fixed or even acknowledged by the devs in almost a month since launch of v6? Unsure how it could have been missed in testing anyway being such a vital thing…
I’ve already reported this issue to Chaos support and they answered me that they’re already working on the solution… It was already 2 weeks ago!
now I got the following reply: “It should be fixed in the next anima update which should be in the next 2 weeks.”
Thanks! I’d love the devs to actually post here and communicate with their customers.
So, we installed the new update, 6.1.0 and it fixes the 3ds Max license issue. Thank you for fixing this.
We’re still having this issue on 3ds Max 2025 (27.3.0) and Anima 6.1.0, if a user opens a Max file with Anima in it it will consume a license until they close Max. In some cases, they have to close Max, then open and close Anima to clear it.
Is anyone else still experiencing this? Anything we can do to work around this?
This happens to us as well, but this is expected, I would think. Any thoughts on this, Chaos.
Seems like this would just be normal for Anima to grab a license when Anima is present in a max scene. The problem in 6.0 was Anima was grabbing a license when an empty max scene was even loaded. That seems to have been fixed.
It’s not how it behaved in version 5, that would only claim a license when you were authoring the content and maybe when using Drop.
If this is intentional, it seems like a cash-grab. Make sure you have a seat for all of your artists, otherwise everyone has to stop what they’re doing when one person needs the Anima app. I’d also be interested to get Chaos’ take on this.
It has never behaved this way.
I was merely adjusting something completely unrelated to Anima in one of our mainscenes today. I.E. not using anima, not importing anima, not using anima drop in any way whatsoever. Anima layer not even visible.
The Anima license was assigned to my workstation and prevented a colleague who ACTUALLY was in the Anima app from working!
Never had these issues ever before in many many years of Anima use.
I only need to be a render node for Anima 99% of the time so how the heck do all my colleagues work now?
The whole studio has to close Max so someone can use the Anima app?
(Anima v6.1.1)
Reiterating this absurdity which we have to go through.
We’ve renewed our studio license this week and upgraded from anima 5.6 to anima 6.1.1. and it’s a nightmare.
I won’t even mention having to download the whole library again since it doesn’t recognize the same models it used just one week ago.
I won’t even mention the absurdly low daily limit of downloads or the download speed.
But having an empty 3DS max which pulls the anima license without even using it is just horrible. At one point I had one max open with no anima whatsoever and no running anima stand alone and yet somehow the license server was showing that my machine was using 3 (three) license slots (or open connections, not sure how and what it counts)?!
The only “safe” option now is to have anima on only one machine as a workstation and all others have to be render nodes which makes the whole floating networking license useless.
Thoughts, Chaos?
The Anima plugin behavior with the license has evolved quite a bit since Anima 6.0.0 was released, so I will explain below how it is expected to work now in the latest version available at this moment (6.1.1).
The Anima license is only used when Anima has been installed in Workstation mode and the user has an open instance of either the Anima Designer standalone application or any of the host DCC applications that are supported by the Anima plugins (3dsMax, Cinema4D and Unreal Engine). In the case of the DCC apps, the plugin only uses the license if a scene with Anima content is loaded in the app. When this happens once, the license cannot be released until the DCC app is restarted (this is a limitation on the SDK from the main DCC apps, not from Anima).
Since Anima version 6.1.1, the license is never used if 3dsMax is started in “headless” mode (that is, to do a render job without an interactive UI). This happens even when using the Workstation installation mode. Moreover, even having Anima installed in Workstation mode, if the license cannot be activated for any reason, the plugin still loads and renders the scenes without issues. However, it is not possible to edit the content by using Anima Drop or the Alive sync with Anima Designer.
To avoid any kind of Anima license interference when rendering, our recommendation is installing Anima in Render Node mode instead of using the Workstation mode. Keep in mind that the Workstation mode is only meant to be used to create, edit or modify Anima content. Therefore, if you only want to load scenes with Anima content in 3dsMax or Cinema4D but you don’t need to edit those scenes at any point, installing Anima in Render Node mode is the best solution. The Render Node installation mode does never require a license, it is free to use.
In Unreal Engine it is not possible to use the Render Node installation mode because of the particular architecture of that software (it is a realtime game engine, not an app for offline rendering like 3dsMax and Cinema4D). Therefore, to work with UE it is always required to have Anima installed in Workstation mode and a license activated on that device.
If you experience a licensing behavior that does not correspond to the examples provided, please contact us via the Chaos Help Centre. Our support team will look closely at your case to guide you to a solution.
Preety sure its not working like this.
Just yesterday i send a video to the farm and the anima characters reset their position on frame 96+ (anima lite or free behavior)
ALL pcs have the 6.11 anima..
Cant chaos hire more people to fix and mantain anima?? thats what company buyouts supose to do right ?
Hi juan_estupin1,
Thanks for your feedback.
The Anima license in version 6.1.1 is certainly working as I described in our testing environment. Several members of the Anima team, including myself, have tested and confirmed it multiple times.
If you are able to replicate a different behavior in your farm setup, please open a ticket and we will study your case in detail to find out what might be causing the issue.