And now Mudbox is burning down! 
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Does anyone know of a ‘new software project’ that Pablo mentioned on his twitter?https://twitter.com/pablodp606/status/1472383079272566792?s=20
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Unfortunately not. Had a couple thoughts about that when I read it. Is it a totally new software or only new that he works on it? WIll it be open source? Is he joining forces with an existing project? I’m dying to find out if I’m honest. 
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They might resurrect it now that Maxologic is gaining more ground in serious areas or production like rendering and sculpting. Mudbox is a damn good raw digital sculpting tool, just that it does not have as many features as Zbrush has.
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3D coat is not perfect like all other apps, some areas are not as polished as others unfortunatelly.
Depending on your needs or some unexpected issue, sometimes you need to switch from 3D coat to Maya, Blender or Substance Painter.
But most of the time 3D coat works well for what it proposes, don’t forget to make regular backups 
The 2021 version didn’t bring so much for the simple usage i make, not sure to pay for 2022 until there is a major very new feature outside of actual modes available.
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Hi Ratchet,
Take a look on this thread please:
Thanks
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Maybe he is joining Maxon.
I’m late to this party 
So this is sad news. Zbrush is for me most user friendly software around… I talk about big, major software ( which include Blender too ). For many reasons. Now… situation change. For sure say goodbye for free updates. This is not too bad per se, after all Pixo must pay his bill, money don’t fall from sky, only how much they will ask for annual upgrade… and will they keep perpetual loicence anyway?
Other than that, my biggest concern is that Pixo is now only screw in big machine. Like every big company Maxon have plans, schedules and all part of company must obey. Many, many times Zbrush suddenly drop ‘update’ between regular releases. They make something, and they immediately share it with users… as far I know only Blender do something like that.
Now imagine that Pixo developers say: hey, we make some nice improvements for … Zremesher ( for example ), we want to release it. I guess that Big Boss will say something like: Ok, but wait XXX months until new release. And if they make some really big new stuff like… liquid simulation and in same time have couple other improvements, they probably will not be allowed to release all at once.
" Guys leave something for next release, don’t put all eggs in one basket" … or something like that.
I don’t think that this will end well. Of course, Zbrush is very developed software and all further improvements will be in small increments, except some surprises, and this dudes many times prove that they can surprise us. Currently I watch Paul G. and his ‘Mediaeval Helmet’ on YT. It’s amazing how good is Zbrush, how his tools work together in harmony. Normally this is possible only because Zbrush is dedicated software, not general like Maya, Max, C4D, Modo… and Blender
Regard Blender sculpt tool… It’s nice to have usable sculpt tool in Blender, it’s second best on market, … not sure about 3D Coat, anyway I don’t see to many sculpt in 3DC, however even 3rd place is more than good for General Purpose software. I think that for Blender is better to search his way, instead to hunt Zbrush. Many people say that Pablo Dobaro don’t make “useful” stuff. I think that is better to say that he don’t go in Zbrush way. His ‘abstract’ stuff are maybe exotic for majority of users, but I believe that this during time can evolve in unique toolset, something which Zbrush, Mudbox, 3D Coat don’t have. Just like 3D Coat have some unique features because many experienced Zbrush users use 3DC for some particular tasks. Many Blender opponents say that Blender try to be many things but are not master in any area… Well, this argument is ALMOST true… But this is true for every other General Purpose software. Anyway he have some ‘unique’ stuff, like Grease Pencil, this thingy alone is good reason that someone start using Blender. Blender sculpt tools can be another ‘unique’ feature. If Blender make some stuff which will allow users to make some crazy s#**t which are not possible or very hard to achieve in other software this is big win. In current state sculpt tool is more than enough to make decent artworks. So there is two ways, to hunt Zbrush or to try to make his own way.
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It would be useful to refer to Maxon’s current pricing policy. This will help us predict the future of Zbrush. - https://www.mediamachine.nl/c4d.pdf
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Yeah, those Maxon prices… 
I personally wouldn’t mind paying $10 or maybe even $15 a month for ZBrush. That’d be $120 to $180 a year for upgrade maintenance. But looking at Maxon’s price policy, ZBrush will probably be more expensive.
I do think it was a weird situation that ZBrush kept giving away upgrades for free, while upgrading the Keyshot renderer for ZBrush costs around $160 per year.
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So Cinema4D perpetual costs 3000€ and subscription 600€/yr
»src
but C4D have huge competition in DCC (6x times less revenue than Autodesk’s M&E), while Zbrush is almost monopoly in digital sculpting. Oh, god those prices will be insane.
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If only 5% of these 5 mil users supported Blender dev fund at lowest tier we’d have around 1.5 mil a month for development.
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The second one is just a “catch up” upgrade. If you are more than 2 versions old, you pay more to upgrade. It’s not out of line.
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True that, but I still think those prices are from a bygone DCC era, like Autodesk’s prices, but at least there’s a reasonably priced indie version of Max and Maya.
Regarding sculpting apps: if you make a one-time investment in an iPad + Pencil (or Pencil clone), you can buy Nomad Sculpt for only $15, and from what I’ve read about it, it rocks. I expect many small freelancers and hobbyists to move from ZBrush to Blender, 3D-Coat and Nomad Sculpt since the ‘Maxologic’ news.
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For sure, I make no comment about the prices, just the practice.
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I’ve seen a video about Nomad Sculpt. It had very powerful features and, best of all, it’s mobile-based! It is also possible to do texture painting using Procreate these days. - NOMAD 1.6.2 TO PROCREATE 5.2 – with New UV unwrapping - YouTube
Well, if you consider that the world’s engeneering
software (Inventor, Fusion 360, Siemens NX, Solid works & Creo), product and car design software (Alias & ICEM) and architecture (Revit, Allplan, Vectorworks, Archicad) all live by the grace of giant software (holding) companies, such as Autodesk, Nemetschek, Dassault Systèmes - and we all know about the Adobe situation. There are some smaller players in some of these markets, but the majority of all design and creation software that is used to create physical products is in the hands of a very select number of companies. There’s little to choose between, especially if you consider established pipelines, exchange formats and having to meet legislation in various sorts and forms, not to mention costs of education. And so these softwares capitalise on their position and thereby also impose limits on the development of these markets. Furthermore, it restricts access to the best tools available, meaning you got to pay big if you want to be innovative. This may actually leave low-wage countries behind.
Although this is certainly the case for DCCs, the situation seems to be less dire. The subscription prices are a fraction of some of the CAD softwares out there, which charge several thousands a year. We should consider ourselves to be fortunate enough to have Blender. And all the development opportunities it spawned for addons - and therefore for the end user.
I consider Krita and QGIS the only valid Foss apps I tried that can compete with the commercial giants to a certain extent. Even the Affinity apps require more development time. So if more people were to transition and leverage the money saved to aid the development of competing Foss apps or commercial offerings with a good (pricing) reputation, it would benefit so many more people.
P.S. Inkscape and GIMP really require a UI/UX revision so they can be both more procedural and fit more closer to established workflow to reduce educational costs in order to be integrated in a pipeline more easily.
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It’s relative, that’s true. I was a 3ds Max user from around 1996 to 2012, and the yearly upgrades used to cost around € 650, for only a handful of changes. Those yearly upgrades were hard to skip, because about every other Max version’s API broke all plug-in compatibility, causing plug-in updates to soon require a new 3ds Max version. So in essence the yearly upgrades were already subscriptions in disguise.
I quite like the indie version option of both Max and Maya. It keeps those tools accessible. If Maxon would do the same, for example a combined C4D + Redshift + ZBrush indie package for a reasonable yearly price could be an attractive deal. But I’m sure that will not happen.
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On the other hand, Indie licenses hurt the competition, since smaller companies won’t be able to charge much less and be okay with delivering less in return, compared to the well established packages. In the long run, it would probably be best if Maxon continues to overcharge and people would instead opt to fund Blender.
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