im sure eveyone who pays through the nose for a subscription here will already have seen the news.
the subscription “advantage pack”/ extension, has been released. however it is now a tiered release. for those with a max subscription, we get a grand total of 2 new caching operators for pflow. yay.
however if you have the autodesk suite, you get mparticles and advanced particle data manipulation (as i understand it, basically pflow boxes 2 and 3)
since ive been waiting to play with pflow box 2 for years, im quite disgusted to see that it will only be provided to those users who have also purchased software OTHER THAN 3DSMAX from autodesk.
this is a shameless money grab.. and after paying increasing amounts for subscription, being unable to use 2012 for almost a full year due to instability and general crapness, then getting a 2013 with so little interesting in it, i didnt even bother downloading it yet, finding out the subscription will go UP next year, then this kick in the teeth… there is NO WAY i will be paying my subscription again until they sort it out. i refuse to be their bitch.
i agree fully… what the fuck? i mean we kind of liked max and the subscription model till now but i can´t really understand that move which surely must have pissed of many long time max (and subscription) users. it´s more about the arrogant gesture than about those additions for us though, but nevertheless irritating. when i pay for a subscription to get all the goodies i want all the goodies and not another more expensive subscription to get the goodies we used to get.
other companies lower prices or aggressively push their subscriptions like adobe with their creative cloud or the CAD/BIM package graphisoft archicad we use (with which you get monthly more or less useful addons and goodies and libraries and cheaper prices for plugins and all that coming along with the subscription) but autodesk now turns around and goes straight the other way?
I can’t see us continuing with the subscription once this year ends. We are now up to date, so it was worth us doing earlier this year, but I think that will probably be it. In a few years, if we feel we are being left behind again, we may just jump ship to something entirely different.
I was reading with this new tiered program that its timed. So you only get your software for the year then its out of date. Which is kind of a joke. I think its all a ploy to keep investors from realizing that all the adsk software is mature and theres not much more profit that can be gained from actual sales of seats so they have to keep generating profit by changing billing schemes.
Okay so let’s start discussing what other package can we switch to? Brett, you’re saying modo might be a good idea? I’m looking for something that will be as close to multipurpose use of 3dsmax as possible. Maya is out of question because it’s more aimed for companies that have programmers that will adjust it to the workflow you need, plus again it’s AUTODESK
I paid to get up to date recently, plus 1 years subscription (in order to get 2013) but I reckon I’ll stick to 2013 for a good while as I did with 2009.
In the meantime if chaosgroup could put some resources into vray for modo that would be great
modo is with no doubt a fantastic software. I have been playing with it since its first version and it is today a very mature package.
That said, I can’t imagine myself doing any serious, medium to large-scale archviz projects with it. Not that it is lacking any essential tools, but it is rather their implementation that leaves me perplex, like for example the whole snapping system.
But… if V-ray for modo is released I may seriously consider switching !
I think Modo is a looking promising but so the latest release of Cinema4D. I’ve never really looked at Cinema but this latest release looks great.
Sculpting inside C4D, the new modeling/snapping tools, camera matching, for Arch Vis its looking great and its one of the best motion graphics Apps out there.
I think I will be taking a look myself. http://www.maxon.net/en/products/new-in-cinema-4d-r14/overview.html
Also Houdini has just dramatically dropped there prices, but its too complex for me.
I just started with Houdini some month ago. Yes it´s pretty complex but also extremly powerfull. To be honest it probably won´t be the tool of my
choice for my everday work wich means archviz and productviz. But for simulation stuff I haven´t seen anything better, yet. The advantages, disregarding
the features, there is a free PLE version and you get hours of free training videos.
Regarding the features. The first thing I noticed, everything looks coherent. The nodebased editor is the same
for shader, modeling, animation, simulation, rendering. It doesn´t give you that “Jocelyn Wildenstein” kind of feeling like in max
where basically everything is just bought technology that doens´t work together and is never developed any further.
This also means that everything plays together pretty well. Like fluids affect hair, rigid bodies affect fluids and so on.
Also when it comes to simulation you basically have everything included that would need a dozen of plugins in 3dsmax.
You get Grid Based Fluid solver (several of them + subsolver), FLIP Fluids (half grid based, half particle based), particle fluids,
rigid bodies, fracture systems like Rayfire, softbodies, particles, hair, cloth and as allready said.. it all works together pretty well.
You can use vector fields from Grid Sims to drive rigid bodies and visa verse.
And you have a pretty good viewport that displays smoke and fire for example in nearly the quality like in the final rendering.
Working with Houdini gives you a bit that Vray feeling where you know there are people behind it that have a real
passion for what they do.
From Ken
"I’ve received approval (from many levels in the organization) to state the following:
Autodesk has heard the concerns of customers and has decided that current subscription users of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design (along with users of suites that contain those products) will receive the Box2 extension (in addition to what they can already download) no later than October 2012. We will release more information about the change in the coming weeks and will update our existing marketing materials to reflect this change when it happens.
We will continue to make available the combination of Box2 and Box3 ONLY to ECS subscription customers. If you want Box3 from Autodesk, then you’ll need to be an ECS subscription customer to get it.
yep box 3 is probably the more powerful one.. id love to hear their excuse for requiring you to buy mudbox, to get a max particle plugin..
im wondering if box 2 really is the full box 2? i.e. with gpu acceleration? since all the physx dynamics stuff that has been incorporated into max so far has mysteriously lost its gpu acceleration en route.
think ill have to give houdini a try.. anyone ever done large scale arch vis in it? or is it unsuitable? is it as broad featured as max? ive only ever heard of it being used for hardcore procedural animation.
trouble is.. if people moved to another package en-masse.. adsk would just buy that too.
The built in renderer is so incredible slow. As soon as you turn on refraction