4 ms·

I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Modo and blender are much more p

I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Modo and blender are much more popular in my experience. Then shops big enough to afford them tend to have a custom workflow built in already. My source: Could be completely wrong and is based purely on personal data. I help run a local indie game development meetup and have been involved with 3 others and only a few people were using Maya or 3DStudio Max. Mostly because of pricing. However of those working with 3D assets the majority of them are working with Blender or Modo with Unity and Unreal as the primary engines. One or two scenekit/source sdk/cryengine people thrown in there.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
> I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high Then it's not aimed at indies, obviously; Unity and in recent days the Unreal engine offer fairer prices for them. The bigger game companies probably won't have an issue with using this product though - if it manages to impress them, that is, compared to the established game engines which have years, sometimes decades of development behind them already.
chkuendig 11y ago
> Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Unless you define indies strictly as amateur/hobbyist I seriously doubt this. All the 3d guys i know (freelancers, small interactive studios, independent developers etc. - none affiliated to a mayor publisher) use Maya or 3D Studio Max. It's the same as with the Adobe Suite or MS Office - once you consider labor costs, licenses become a second thought if you use something professionally and earn money doing it. That being said, I don't really see this having a big market either, nobody seems to have any major issues integrating with unity or unreal for now.
- SloopJon 11y ago
  I haven't paid much attention to Maya since Autodesk bought it, but people seemed pretty excited when the price dropped from $7,000 to $2,000. If the other comment about pricing is accurate, it sounds like Stingray is effectively bundled with Maya LT at no extra charge.
  - methodover 11y ago
    That was in 2002, right? Yeah it hasn't gone down much since. The absolute cheapest price is a $1,470 annual subscription. A perpetual license will cost you $3,675. I wish we had competition in that space. Maybe if Maya hadn't have sold out, we'd have something like the current price war between Unity and Unreal, which is great for games and game developers.
psykotic 11y ago
> Modo and blender are much more popular in my experience. I don't know anyone who uses Modo for animation (its animation tools are very opinionated/idiosyncratic in their approach) and Blender doesn't have much uptake outside of hobbyists. When it comes to rigging and animation, Maya still reigns supreme, crusty though it may be. For hard surface modeling, Modo is the best in class and it just got better with built-in Mesh Fusion in 901, but many people raised on Max and Maya stick to what they know. For organic modeling, ZBrush for sculpting and retopo is the standard, usually with a traditional modeling package in the loop.
exelius 11y ago
Think of this as less of a "game development engine" and more of an "interactive experience engine". Things like physics modeling and input control are useful in far more than just entertainment products. I get the feeling this is less targeted at game developers than the people who use Autodesk products for things other than games, who might benefit from a game-like interface.
exodust 11y ago
Modo's price increased recently when The Foundry took over. Lightwave is now a better option, although they both have strengths and weaknesses. Game designers use a range of tools, so it's a hard sell to convince people to stick with one suite. But it is Autodesk, they play hard. iClone is starting to get seriously interesting for the Indy scene. It's not a modeller, but it's no longer a toy. Their marketing department overdoes the "50% off for one week only" thing, which put me off initially, but the application is good. The direct puppet feature is cool. The holy grail might be lip syncing, and is getting better but nobody has an easy solution for that yet. iClone's focus is low-poly so works well with export to Unreal (in theory, I haven't done it yet).
nailer 11y ago
In UnrealEngine scene everyone is on Maya: hobbyists are on student versions, studios have proper licenses. Actually I really hope Epic creates a modelling tool. They currently use Maya in-house and it's awfully clunky: a competitor moving in to their space might hopefully spawn the intention to do the same to Autodesk.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago

> I'm having a hard time seeing the market for this. Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high Then it's not aimed at indies, obviously; Unity and in recent days the Unreal engine offer fairer prices for them. The bigger game companies probably won't have an issue with using this product though - if it manages to impress them, that is, compared to the established game engines which have years, sometimes decades of development behind them already.

chkuendig 11y ago

> Most indies aren't using Maya or 3DStudio Max because the price is too high. Unless you define indies strictly as amateur/hobbyist I seriously doubt this. All the 3d guys i know (freelancers, small interactive studios, independent developers etc. - none affiliated to a mayor publisher) use Maya or 3D Studio Max. It's the same as with the Adobe Suite or MS Office - once you consider labor costs, licenses become a second thought if you use something professionally and earn money doing it. That being said, I don't really see this having a big market either, nobody seems to have any major issues integrating with unity or unreal for now.

SloopJon 11y ago
I haven't paid much attention to Maya since Autodesk bought it, but people seemed pretty excited when the price dropped from $7,000 to $2,000. If the other comment about pricing is accurate, it sounds like Stingray is effectively bundled with Maya LT at no extra charge.
- methodover 11y ago
  That was in 2002, right? Yeah it hasn't gone down much since. The absolute cheapest price is a $1,470 annual subscription. A perpetual license will cost you $3,675. I wish we had competition in that space. Maybe if Maya hadn't have sold out, we'd have something like the current price war between Unity and Unreal, which is great for games and game developers.

psykotic 11y ago

> Modo and blender are much more popular in my experience. I don't know anyone who uses Modo for animation (its animation tools are very opinionated/idiosyncratic in their approach) and Blender doesn't have much uptake outside of hobbyists. When it comes to rigging and animation, Maya still reigns supreme, crusty though it may be. For hard surface modeling, Modo is the best in class and it just got better with built-in Mesh Fusion in 901, but many people raised on Max and Maya stick to what they know. For organic modeling, ZBrush for sculpting and retopo is the standard, usually with a traditional modeling package in the loop.

exelius 11y ago

Think of this as less of a "game development engine" and more of an "interactive experience engine". Things like physics modeling and input control are useful in far more than just entertainment products. I get the feeling this is less targeted at game developers than the people who use Autodesk products for things other than games, who might benefit from a game-like interface.

exodust 11y ago

Modo's price increased recently when The Foundry took over. Lightwave is now a better option, although they both have strengths and weaknesses. Game designers use a range of tools, so it's a hard sell to convince people to stick with one suite. But it is Autodesk, they play hard. iClone is starting to get seriously interesting for the Indy scene. It's not a modeller, but it's no longer a toy. Their marketing department overdoes the "50% off for one week only" thing, which put me off initially, but the application is good. The direct puppet feature is cool. The holy grail might be lip syncing, and is getting better but nobody has an easy solution for that yet. iClone's focus is low-poly so works well with export to Unreal (in theory, I haven't done it yet).

nailer 11y ago

In UnrealEngine scene everyone is on Maya: hobbyists are on student versions, studios have proper licenses. Actually I really hope Epic creates a modelling tool. They currently use Maya in-house and it's awfully clunky: a competitor moving in to their space might hopefully spawn the intention to do the same to Autodesk.