The revenue-based licensing for smaller studios has been popularized by 3D software giants such as Unit圓D and Unreal Engine in recent years. It’s hard to imagine Autodesk being able to roll back such a program without facing public backlash though. So before you go on expecting this pricing to last forever realize it could end at any time. They put ads out telling people to call their cable provider & tell them “I want my MTV.” So call your resellers, direct sales, & yes even the product team & say “I want my Max Indie!” The phrase “I want my MTV!” came from when MTV was not available to everyone.
Much like when the telecom companies offer a new channel in select areas to see how to roll it out, this is similar. In a Facebook post, Autodesks Chip Weatherman made a point to convey Autodesk’s regard of the new Indie licensing program as being a “pilot” program.
You don’t get full-access to the Autodesk catalog like the educational licensing provides but it’s still a far cry short of the full $200/month price tag.
The Indie license clocks in at around $20/month which should be doable for anyone generating income as a 3D artist. These licenses require one to be a currently-enrolled student and aren’t of much use to fresh graduates and freelancers. This includes 3DS Max, Maya, Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor, Fusion 360, and many other software packages. They offer an incredible educational licensing program that allows free use of many of their most popular programs. Licenses limited to US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and AustraliaĪutodesk is regarded as a leader in the 3D field when it comes to fair pricing for their products.Annual gross revenue not in excess of $100,000 USD/year.Autodesk has outlined the following requirements for anyone seeking an Indie license: That is both would cost $500.īefore you get too excited, there are some eligibility requirements. The 3DS Studio Max and Maya Indie licenses are available for $250/year, per license. This is the studio price that, for many solopreneurs and smaller studios out there, is a bit hard to swallow. The future of those learning Maya is good as there are several opportunities.3D Studio Max licenses retail for $1,545/year or $195/month as an ongoing subscription. There are certified courses that guarantee jobs. Maya has almost become an industry standard for animation, as such there are several institutes offering courses on Maya. It has become very popular with the film industry, as earlier this was done manually and required several artistes to work on the animations, which can now be done easily with Maya. It saves time as well as brings to the fore several new facets that would not have been explored otherwise. In case of architecture, the ease and flexibility with which complex architecture models can be created is amazing. Maya also helps companies in creating and designing their digital layouts and models. Video game companies can use the scene assembly and modeling tools to create a world fpr their games by incorporating features such as roads, trees, forests etc. The use of Maya in livening-up animation with life-like effects, are limited only to the creativity of the artists. While using Maya, everything is rendered in real time, so while making 3D models and visual effects, one can see the final output and make changes.
Other tools that Maya has, are Volume Attributes, Paint Effects Surface, Clip Matching, etc. Translucency effects and textures can be worked upon to one’s satisfaction. It has Viewport 2.0 and DX11Shader rendering engine which make it easy to work on blurred reflections and shader effects.
Maya offers several tools such as the grease pencil, automatic joint centering, camera sequencer, and weight distribution tools are some of the features that make adding special effects very easy as compared to the earlier manual method.
Maya was extensively used in films like Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass, Salt and many more.
It helped making Autobots transform into robots from automobiles and drawing their facial expressions. Maya was used in the Transformers films to great effect. During the development of Maya, Walt Disney Animation collaborated in making of its films. Those who have seen blockbuster movies and animation films like Transformers, Finding Nemo and in several action sequences of movies, will be happy to know that the special effects or SFX in the movies are now rendered by Maya. It was originally developed by Alias Wavefront in 1998, and was later acquired in 2005 by Autodesk. In fact anywhere you need 3D animated videos of characters, animals or objects for entertainment or education it can be done with the help of Autodesk Maya. It is used by video professionals for making animated videos for films and video clippings that are used in TV programs, video games, websites, presentations etc.