Today Autodesk has rolled out a new approach to accessing their wide array of Professional Applications:
3D Studio Max, Maya, Mudbox, Flame, Motionbuilder, AutoCAD, RevIt, Fusion 360, Vault, Alias Concept and Inventor
This is with a Token System they're calling "Flex"., which allows people to have access to one of the above applications for you (and those you add to your Flex list) for 24hours at a time.
Each Product has an individual token cost...
For example: Maya Creative costs 1 Flex / Day., while Maya costs 6 Flex / Day and Flame costs 18 Flex / Day
Now on the positive side., this means instead of individual subscriptions you're purchasing Flex Tokens that can be used for any of these Products.
On the negative side... these aren't "Micro-Transactions" that is more affordable for Independent Developers.
The minimum number of Flex Tokens you can purchase is 100 Tokens; which is presently £282 (inc. VAT) / $300 (excl. Tax)
I hope that in the future Autodesk reduce the Minimum Token Purchases., as this would make Maya Creative an
excellent option for Independent / Hobbyist Studios; along with offering "Creative" versions of their other Software., as this would then make it an excellent option for Short-Term Projects.
Let's say you want to use Maya Creative (or hopefully 3D Studio Creative, it would be nice to see them add a creative version of that) for your next Game Project... being able to purchase say 14 (£40) or 30 (£82) Tokens., to only have access during the Development period would be much more affordable, than having to drop £280+ / Year and then only use it for say a Month while you're working on the 3D for your project.
It's great to see Autodesk finally take a more modern approach to access models that lowers the bar without massively reducing features of their products., but I think it is still a little to expensive; and I'm not sure they understand that a major factor of what drives up sales of a Micro-Transaction System (such-as a Token based approach) is the Minimum should be "Micro" with discounts for larger purchases... this is to encourage people to feel like the bigger packs are better value (which they are)., while the smaller packs are small enough not to really notice how much is being spent as you buy them more frequently.
Still, I think that this might be useful for those here who are starting to earn off of their projects and are looking for a Flexible Professional Solution for their 3D Needs.
While sure... Blender is Completely Free., and does have a Comprehensive Suite of Features; a big problem with Blender is how unintuitive it is to use... there is quite the steep learning curve, and plug-ins are at the mercy of the community; which of course is always growing but there is no-where near the same legacy support that you'll find in Autodesk Products. At this point if Max or Maya don't do something natively., there *IS* a Plug-In or Script (usually free) that will do what you need; in-fact often there are usually a few for the same thing.
It's also notable that any 3rd Party Artist you bring on board to your project will have experience with one of said Products; as these are what are used for 3D Courses at College / University., so there is no learning curve; most can hit the ground running with them.
As well as the fact that regards of more experience with Maya/Fusion/Max/AutoCAD; well these are all cross-compatible allowing projects to seamlessly be transferred between them., along with native support for popular Middleware (Unity / Unreal / Godot)
This would also be true for AppGameKit *IF* support for FBX was updated and improved.
See the full story here...
