Yeah, its a trap. They want us to use their tools. :eek:
And i am willing to step right into it.
I already have an foss pipeline, when Modo becomes NC i can built a foundry pipeline or a mixed one.
Whats not to like about it?
IMO these are really just learning-editions of the software to broaden the appeal. they state in their own forums that mari non commercial is the mari indie release but with a different license agreement.
if you read over there it appears that mari is stuck in a small high end film market and they are concerned that they are going to lose out on games which the substance products are covering pretty well. somewhere in there it’s said they have only two developers working on mari at the moment.
i would guess that modo similarly has been a bit left out - although less confined to niche markets - and that they try to introduce more users to the software this way. at least i’ve never been at a studio where there was more than the odd one or two modo users (usually with lightwave background) working among a sea of artists using max and maya.
since these foundry non-commercial products are pretty restricted and - if you’ve been around the industry for a while - learning- and lower-end editions have a tendeny to be bestowed upon you and taken away again rather suddenly i do not think the effect on blender will be noticeable.
I use Maya and MODO professionally.
MARI Non-commercial is fantastic for students and hobbyists but even if I didn’t own a MODO license, I don’t see how a MODO Non-commercial (which hasn’t been announced at all and is something I don’t expect to see too soon) would lower my interest in Blender. I want to use this stuff professionally, so any Non-Commercial version doesn’t do anything for me beyond giving me the opportunity to try and learn the software for free before committing to purchasing a license.
No its not “standard Foundry crippled versions”… I don’t quite understand that phrasing. There are a few limitations that are NOT arbitrary and its not meant to piss people off.
Modo Indie for example, this stems from Modo SE (steam edition) which had an export limit of some 7,000 polys. Why so low? Because it was meant for DOTA assets, which have a cap. Indie follows in the same mindset, the cap is based on Maya LT’s cap which was also tied to Unreal Engines import cap. Sure these have changed a bit since then, but the limitation was not arbitrary. The focus is still game art… in fact one thing Indie did do is NOT remove any of the major workflow/features such as rendering, dynamics and animation. Maya LT is still missing some of those.
The problem with them offering the complete package (all major features such as dynamics, animation, rendering engine) is that it makes it hard for them to find some limitation to keep the pro version from getting cannibalized.
Regarding python scripting, its not allowed because, like LT, it would allow the user to get around the polygon cap for export, which is the only major thing separating it from the pro version. The biggest whine I have seen about not being able to export more than 100k per mesh, is that some people want to bake in substance… big deal! Bake in Modo then use substance for the rest. Its just a minor inconvenience really.
Modo Indie also includes the macro system, this lets the user create, share and use macro scripts…
So if no limitations were present, and these are extremely minimal, then there would be no reason to buy the $1800 professional version. Indie cost as little as $9 a month so its really hard to take issue with it. Same goes for Mari Indie (Mari pro is a $2000 painting application).
The limitations in Mari Indie are not severe to the point where your pipeline will have to change between it and the pro version. I dont get the “panic”.
Exactly, not much to really complain about. Also talking to them, it was clear they wanted to increase access to the software. More people learning it is a good thing. They teach Nuke in schools for vfx, Mari and Modo never really penetrated the education space, so with high accessibility people can have a shot at seeing what there is to like about it or prepare for a job at a studio.
On top of that, there is Indie, which is commercially viable and cheap. Best of both worlds.
Yes, I got the feeling that The Foundry looked at Maya LT or whatever and said “yep, we’re doing that too”. A 100k poly cap is arbitrary. It could as well have been 200k or 50k. Or there could be no cap like in Blender and Houdini Indie. UE4 never had a poly import cap, maybe you’re mixing it up with Unity.
What is the point of a geometry cap anyway? And is it really that import that python scripting is not allowed just because of that? That sounds extremely unlikely in my opinion. I think python scripting is disabled because it is useful and will make people buy the “real” version instead making them some more money.
And your response to breaking someone’s workflow is “big deal!”. Well maybe to that person it is a deal big enough to not want to use Modo. This is my reasoning for calling the indie versions from The Foundry crippled, because you have to change your workflow in order to adapt to the software when it should really be the other way around.
If the limitations were removed and monetary limits were there instead (Houdini Indie/Substance: annual gross of less than $100k) indie users of Modo and Mari would have a much better time.
I don’t get the “but Maya does it too!” thing. Just because they suck doesn’t mean you have to suck too. Maybe Modo Indie and Mari Indie are good programs but in that case they are that in spite of the limitiations rather than because of them.
Pyton has to go because it can circumvent any restriction. That is the same with nearly any non-commercial version out there.
Nobody denies that a restriction is somewhat arbitrary, but you have to understand that there has to be an limitation or there would be no NC or Indie Version.
They want to give freelancers, hobbyists and others access to their tools, but they will not blow up their business model.
-
No its not arbitrary. Arbitrary would be if they just picked any number for no reason for having that specific amount. They went with 100k because it was tied to a cap in one of the game engines they were looking at (at the time). Could have been Unity, I just don’t recall. Saying its arbitrary is simply wrong. You can disagree with the cap, but don’t say its arbitrary.
-
While you are offering an opinion/assumption on what you think they were doing, I actually know what they were doing. Simple, I talk to them. Both at siggraph and through online communication such as forums. In fact you can actually find them in the Steam chat channels, and by them I refer to the staff tied to the Indie product line.
The purpose of the polygon cap for export is to keep some limitations in place to prevent the pro version from being cannibalized. Its a small team working on Modo, they can’t really just kill their product line up because a version going for $9 a month or $299 is nearly identical to their $1800 version. No amount of entitlement should get in the way of that. Now you could wish they did copy LT (which they didnt) and remove larger feature sets (I personally wish they did, no need for the renderer imo)… but they didnt. So the few MINOR limitations they have in place is the polygon export cap per MESH item/render limit to 4k, and the lack of python scripts. Thats a small wall separating the extremely cheap version from the professional. Both versions are commercially viable, no restrictions on the amount of money you can make.
Python scripting is disabled because it would allow users to get around whatever limitations they have in place. They have however started integrating the most popular user based scripts (python) into Modo itself. Vertex Normal Toolkit is now part of Modo 10, they even hired the developer who made it (a former Rockstar Games developer). Simple perfect circle and alignment scripts are also part of the toolset. There are not really a metric ton of “important scripts” you will need to have access to… and if you are a professional who needs to be writing your own tools (before actually looking at what modo can natively do) then yeah seems logical to buy the professional version.
Finally on that subject, Macros exist. You can find macro files… which you can consider to be a form of melscripting. Its just taking what Modo Indie can do already and lets the user create new tools or options based on that. For example one of my most used macroscripts is an automatic UV unwrap which quickly fires off a set of steps to get a perfect pelted result. This is not excluded in Indie.
And your response to breaking someone’s workflow is “big deal!”. Well maybe to that person it is a deal big enough to not want to use Modo. This is my reasoning for calling the indie versions from The Foundry crippled, because you have to change your workflow in order to adapt to the software when it should really be the other way around.
If the limitations were removed and monetary limits were there instead (Houdini Indie/Substance: annual gross of less than $100k) indie users of Modo and Mari would have a much better time.
I don’t get the “but Maya does it too!” thing. Just because they suck doesn’t mean you have to suck too. Maybe Modo Indie and Mari Indie are good programs but in that case they are that in spite of the limitiations rather than because of them.
Who said its going to “break” someone’s workflow? Its not but also as technical artist you have to be able to adapt otherwise you are doing the job wrong. If you move to another studio or there is a change being made with regards to software solutions, are you going to tell your art director “no I refuse to do it this new way”? Good luck keeping your job.
The point here is that its not a big deal. If for some reason you are doing high poly work in Modo that exceeds 100k and you only want to export one mesh item… and assuming you just want to bake in Substance Designer, then the reality is you have to it in Modo. Its not a big deal. Bake a quick AO and Normal map then send it over to Substance and continue working. The workflow hasnt changed, you are just generating a few maps in Modo instead of another application. You can also just bake out an object normal and use conversion tools outside of it. Substance Designer, NDO, Xnormal, Handplane… they do this. So again, its literally NOT A BIG DEAL.
If you are subD modeling in Modo then guess what… you can export the non subD version and apply it another application… Really the limitations are if anything, minor inconveniences. If you sculpted a mesh in zbrush and want to retopo in Modo. Fine, there is no import limit. Just export the retopo version and bake in another application with the zbrush model as HP. Not a big deal, and thats the reality of it.
I don’t know about you, but I (as a Modo pro and Indie license holder) do not want the software to die. Expecting them to jeopardize their business (which has numbers not even close to that of autodesk) just because someone feels entitled to more for less is a bit silly imo. For short term gain, I would lose out on long term development because the money coming in to fund the development would drop and or the product would die entirely. I am happy they at least listened to consumer feedback and found a way to offer a cheaper version of the software. Not sure what else you can expect at this point.
Cheers
As a consumer, I’d rather use Blender than pay for a product that offers less.
You’ve been critical of Blender not working well in conventional workflows. Why do you feel Modo Indie deserves a pass?
Are you telling me that you think baking in the 3D application is less conventional of a workflow than baking in substance designer?
Where are you getting this idea that non conventional workflows are being presented/excused here?
As for criticism at blender, I have consistently been clear on focusing on how its been designed and managed, not what its capable of doing (which is a lot).
XRG’s got a point
Substance’s Baking tools are simply one of the best and easiest to use I’ve ever seen in a software
I would want to use them over Blender’s or modo’s baking tools.
Not really. There is no point. Substance is just a specialty tool. Baking AO in substance wont magically be different from that of Xnormal, or Modo… ect Its not really a “conventional” workflow nor is it denied to the user using Indie. One of the things you can do is convert object space normals to other maps, the tools are there. Its really a non point.
On a side note, Modo Indie has substance as a free DLC, so if you create your substances in designer, you can use them in Modo, also bake out from them getting the same outputs. With Modo 10, you have a very simple baking process. The bakes are just one step in a process which can involve designer.
Well of course it’s no different, why would Allegorithmic want to reinvent the wheel on the AO algorithm?
What I’m saying is that it’s more of a convenience feature, really.
Baking in Blender feels a bit sketchy as Blender Internal will just spout out random errors that I can’t seem to find the solution to, and cycles takes like 74 hours to render AO and it’ll still be noisy as hell,
Substance painter feels like a fire and forget type of thing compared to that.
Maybe it’s different in Modo, who knows?
But baking was just as annoying in Cinema 4D as blender so…
yeah
Besides, I’m going to texture in Substance Painter anyway so might as well bake there.
About that side note, I actually don’t know why there’s no blender plugin for substances yet… Might have something to do with GPL from what I read from the forum posts about that.
But,
If Luxology was serious about making a software dedicated to game modelling, it damn well should support substance files.
Just saying…
I just said it does… -_-
For Indie…
And for Pro (old video, but newer versions exist). They are active on the Modo forums, and I know from meeting some of them that Modo is used over there.
Last I heard there was work being done on an even newer plugin to work with the new viewport in mind.
Toss in the procedural modeling coming up and you have a great combo of procedural texturing and modeling.
No, I’m telling you that pretending the Modo poly-limit isn’t a problem is the same as pretending Blender’s shit-tier keymap isn’t a problem.
You’re entitled to your opinion. I just think your lengthy love letters to Modo seem out of character is all.
You said and I quote:
“As a consumer, I’d rather use Blender than pay for a product that offers less.
You’ve been critical of Blender not working well in conventional workflows. Why do you feel Modo Indie deserves a pass?”
Which is objectively different from what you are saying now. Do you not see that?
Love letters to Modo? I have been critical of Modo in the same way I have been critical of Blender, targeting the design choices I find are not that great or poorly done. Case in point, look at the Modo 10 thread in the news section. So I dont think you can accurately be confirming your bias through phrases like “your length love letters”. Whats your beef?
On the polycount limit… everything has value. You weigh that value based on what you pay (or in Blender’s case, what you dont have to pay). For Indie, they have a few soft limitations which can be gotten around and do not prevent work from getting done… the cost is $9 a month or $299 for perpetual (which is not really worth it compared to the sub cost). At that point the value is extremely good for what you pay, especially with game art in mind. Much of the whine (entitlement) demanding no limitations at all or always pushing for less seems silly, its over exaggerating the problem to fulfill that entitlement.
Or or how about they just remove restrictions completely?
That seems like the more logical thing to do
I mean, There are no restrictions between Substance live indie and Pro,
So why can’t Lux, the “underdog” of the CG industry just follow suit?
Because that would hurt their full license sale. I do not know why is it so hard to understand that ?
The same could be said for substance live indie.
Why not restrict it to businesses that make under 100k per year
Don’t you see difference between MODO and Substance Live?
Why not restrict it to businesses that make under 100k per year
That is because, in my opinion, a lot of ppl that buy MODO license are under 100K per year. MODO is not Houdini or Maya. A lot of MODO users are just hobbyist, and if Foundry gave them something like Houdini Indie (limit render resolution and revenue) that would affect their sale, I think.
This is the entitlement I was talking about. It’s completely irrational.
For starters… who is competing with substances? They invented their own texturing approach. Who else is doing substances? No one. The workflow, the approach, its unique and there is practically little to no competition. Its the same thing with Zbrush, which allows them to not charge for updates (so far). The market is unsaturated.
So what about Modo? Its not a niche product. Its a 3D suite that covers all the basics. Who are they competing against? Maya, Max, Blender, Lightwave, C4D, (formerly XSI)… ect The market is saturated.
You cannot logically expect their situations to be the same. Far more goes into these massive 3D content creation packages and far more can go wrong at the same time. Allegorithmic is focused on a niche, a specialty workflow that works alongside the major packages, it does not replace them. Their business model is not in danger if someone uses Modo over Maya or Max over Blender. They, like zbrush, exist a space they created.
So its naive to believe that everything can mimic what Allegorithmic did. The situations, the climate, the market, the risks… none of them are the same. Allegorithmic is privately owned, Modo (Max, Maya…ect) is part of a bigger company, which itself is owned by someone else. IN this case HGCapital, which is a private equity firm. Revenue not only has to keep share holders happy, but it directly correlates to the funding of development.
Do not try to just assume they are all the same or can have the same business model. If it was true everyone would be copying Allegorithmic (due to popularity), but they are not… because they cant… not without committing some kind of business suicide.