Point to point selection in Max was terrible, if you wanted to select two continuous face loops you have to think how beforehand or use the ribbon. But shouldn’t copying blender’s code be harder than using coding things from scratch? Just like Disney reusing old animations.
It looks like Autodesk does bite off more then it can chew…~100 of architectural firms around the globe sent an open letter to Autodesk CEO complaining about the slow development pace of Revit for the past 5 years while the licensing fees are increasing.
The letter:
More on the matter:
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The whole world is changing, all the old rules are falling, the world is going open and they insist on this way of trying to cage people.
These only create bad karma, which then constantly turns against them with interests, it is a matter of “balance”.
But they don’t want to learn.
Even Microsoft has raised the white flag in trying to fight against the inevitable.
But they don’t want to learn.
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Open Source is a great initiative, and some great projects have come up, so people with less funds can enjoy certain things as well.
Linux as an OS, and Blender as a free 3D VFX application, are just two successful examples.
But a lot of other Open Source projects just wither and die, despite their potential. e.g. Natron.
Why? Because all the developers and minions need to earn a living as well, or they will be living in a tent somewhere alongside the road.
Even the Blender Institute needs money to function, or all the developers will be start searching for another job pretty quickly.
‘Just for the love of it’ doesn’t pay the bills unfortunately.
It doesn’t make commercial software a bad thing, the way some companies deal with this does.
Unfortunately a handful of companies have a stronghold on certain industries, which are hard to break.
We do see a more open approach now to certain levels of use, where the ‘base’ version is free to use, but a more extended version will cost you some money. Blackmagic Da Vinci or Fusion are nice examples of this. Nothing wrong with a business model like that, linked as well to hardware sales.
But the time of high priced software/long term licensing is over, that is true. There’s enough variation nowadays you don’t need the so called industry standards to produce your work. It might take some relearning of old habits, but you will win some new skills in the process. 
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truth is BF is a company that just gives the product away for free 
It’s a foundation, so technically not a company
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I know - I think Ton should get a Nobel Peace medal for what he set up!
The BF does have a for-profit component though, that being the Blender Institute (with the main product being the Blender cloud). At least it behaves as one, the core of Blender development meanwhile is still considered a non-profit operation.
When I wrote that comment, I was not referring to open or closed source, but to the malicious practices of trying to trap users with their software by sabotaging standards or acquiring other well-known and well-functioning software to simply suppress them and other similar practices along this way .
This is very incorrect, to this I mean that it causes bad karma, and that I notice that the world is learning about these practices and therefore is learning how to punish them by moving away from those who do it. These are practices that, even if they are not strictly illegal, are highly unpleasant, and in the end the companies that behave in this way, create a bad reputation on them that in the long run will be damaged anyway, precisely because, at a more universal level, the energies must still flow, otherwise if they stagnate among those who possess them and would just like to accumulate them without making them flow back with those who do not have them, everything dies and dries up.
So for a sense of openness, the world that is evolving, I was referring to openness to the sharing of resources and energies, in a balanced way, so that the energies flow in one direction and the other so that the profit is balanced and not draining in favor of one group and at the expense of others, which then is how everything should really work by laws of nature, and if you notice, in successful cases, these “laws” show that they are very valid and pay off and especially after a over 20 years of internet and software evolved around it, they are showing that they are the best way fair and efficient for everyone.
Understood, and I admire your optimism
But like my granddad always use to say… “It will get worse before it gets better”…
We’re kind of a stubborn species in many ways.
At least, with open source, the source is available for reuse, should someone or some entity decide to scratch that itch. It also enables code to migrate from one project to another, or serve as a basis for a rewrite, which is the kind of the point of publishing the code to the commons. If Ton had not rescued the Blender code from the proprietory pyre that is closed source, then we would probably be using a suite based off of other code, as 3D is an interesting problem to solve…
What I would like to see is more mandatory participation in open source for IT qualification and certification, tax rebates for contributions to open source, subsidies for essential and educational software, targeted contributions would encourage more funds for projects in fields currently dominated by monopolies, cheaper and more inclusive access to public networks, etc…
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It is certain that we are in a very delicate time, where one world is emerging, and another world, which was made up of all these bureaucratic quibbles to cage people and drain them, is reacting to this emerging world.
It is reacting with orchestrated media pandemics scaring people. it is reacting with increasingly harsh censorship, it is reacting with health dictatorships to deprive people of freedom and economic independence , it is reacting with agendas called the great reset (because they sense that if that other world takes over they will be wiped out).
It’s true, someone said, it will get worse before it gets better.
I just hope that more open and balanced world will be able to emerge just in time.
That made me feel better. Glad to see that someone understands what’s going on.
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3ds Max user here.
I don’t know tbh, seems like they’re pushing some neat stuff so clearly it’s the opposite of committing suicide.
They recently developed pretty decent Retopology tools which ofcourse doesn’t work well on CAD’s but still currently it’s one of the best on the market.
There’s also alot of other nice stuff e.g. Bifrost is coming to Max.
You can check Eloi Andaluz Fullà on youtube for all the new stuff, he’s like 3ds Max news youtuber.
Blender is about 99.9 percent of all they need
Yes, but also no, blender still lacks alot of “common” features and plugins and especially workflow “polish”, but they’re slowly adding in stuff, it was great progress in last few years for blender while in past few years Max barely changed.
Imo Max was always about the plugins and their support, you have every renderer you want as a plugin + Arnold for free ( which is like Cycles basically in terms of features and quality only Cycles is faster ), you have fluid simulation plugin selection, you have TyFlow, Thinking Particles etc.
Blender currently seems more of an Abstract animation software, Level & Character design software also Realistic/2D/Toon rendering including 2D animation. Not much else, it’s also bit weak for motion graphics and general vfx. Guess that’s what most ppl do in blender anyway.
Also what’s decent in blender that it has Compositor where you can even edit your videos and composite the render but I think not many ppl are using it anyway as there’s DaVinci Resolve w/ Fusion ( Free ) for example.
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One of the main thrusts of this thread, is that Autodesk is losing business because they continue to raise prices and tighten the screws as far as licensing goes. Unless Blender development suddenly veered headlong into disaster, increasing the R&D on Max and Maya will only get them so far.
I know they have the ‘indie’ license, but it is still subscription only, and past policy changes do not instill confidence the option will be around 10 or even 5 years from now. Then there are the gotchas that buyers might miss (because how many people take the time to sit down and read the fine print).
I am not sure about that, the Indie license was pretty successful.
Again, not so sure about that. By selling an Indie license they sell their program for the first time to “normal” people, not studios, they probably gained some customers that way - if they make money from them why take this away again. A high percentage of those customers would go straight back to a pirated version.
You also should note that the subscription is pretty cheap compared to other 3D programs. Autodesk is way cheaper than Cinema 4d for example.
It’s kind of absurd but Max, Maya and Houdini are cheaper than C4d, as a matter of fact, you get 2 out of 3 for the price of C4d.
A subscription for Marvellous Designer cost more than one for Max or Maya.
Foundry still sells perma licenses for Modo, but they come at a high price.
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There are so many companies you would never even imagine them to be a 3dsMax users. It uses in so many different field. You will not likely to see 3dsMax is losing business anytime soon. Maya is totally different story tho.
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Can you give examples? I am only aware of video games, some tv/movie/commercial effects and animation, archviz, product photography, product concept, concept art, probably something at NASA, and 3d printing… same as every other 3D creation program.
Why is there such an interest in Autodesk? Surely, the energy would be much better spent contributing to the Blender community?
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Some people only want Blender to succeed enough to put fire to the feet of Autodesk so they’d drop their prices significantly.
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