Thread by @delaneykingrox

I have been involved with #3dart #3dartist tools since Max 1.0, and have worked for many major companies and the trend I have watched is artists suffering as their tools become bought up and ruined by profiteering.

https://twitter.com/xavierck3d/status/1470820620992585731

As a result of monopolies and corporations buying up suites of tool then doing the minimum to upkeep whilst the core creatives leave or are sidelined, artists have to work with inferior tools that should develop at a much faster rate and at a fraction of the cost.

I cannot stress enough how great tools that have been making our lives easier (often bearable) have become less usable, often painfully broken and frustrating.

We lost Softimage XSI, we lost 3dsmax to the double death of marketing deiving development (starting with the ribbon)

And having the company push it to architects as a vis tool and pushing Maya onto games.
We have seen plug ins that were affordable and constantly being updated purchased and integrated, then abandoned.

Adobe bought Substance, Maxon bought Zbrush.

Huge companies who focus on design and have a teeny interest in entertainment buy up entertainment software and treat it like the teeny little appendage to their sales that it is.

Big companies starve the development and as a result artists- the end users suffer.

I won't be moving to a subscription model for Zbrush. If my older license stops then I have to kiss it goodbye as yet another memory of a powerful tool lost.

We need to cultivate the market for low price, purchase outright, pay for expansions software that gives us DEVELOPMENT

Blender isn't developing as fast as a paid model, but it IS rapidly developing compared to the "major" packages under the large folio of package companies.

Zbrush was an example of a powerful model of huge tech advancements within an affordable price model. Unfortunately the GUI was terrible.

It is a naive hope that Maxon develops Zbrush it as a tool, not as a subscription cash cow, but I will have to hope.

I was told that Autodesk could get away with buying ALL the major entertainment apps at the time (Maya, Max, XSI) without the monopolies commission stepping in because entertainment was such a tiny part of their markets.

Still, it was the end of XSI, and heralded a stagnation

In development because there was no real point to development. They won. Artists lost.
The company, which I myself worked for as Discreet, seem to shift from being a cool company that supported artists with cool stuff to being perceived as the great villain over that period

And unfortunately it hasn't recovered from there.

Adobe, one the trusty, user friendly software company seemed to trickle out features and more often then not added bizarre gui changes that made the product worse.

Save copy? No pixel lines?

Yikes.

3d artists aren't rich. The vast majority I have met, and remember, I was a touring software specialist, demo artist and pipeline consultant around the world- so I have interacted with many thousands, those artists all have the same gripes.

They WANT to pay for tools that make getting to the creative process quickly, smoothly in a relaxing and reliable way. Fast to learn, easy to master and it all just makes sense.

They WANT to support that software. But they don't get that.

Some will pirate software no matter what, but that drops down when you have good community focus and an affordable price point.

Being able to upgrade when features suit you and when you have the money is an important thing. Being able to rely on the software not vanishing.

Subscriptions are pure evil. They do NOT serve the customers, and they ENCOURAGE piracy (which they say is why they use it).

Cracks become vital when you cannot possibly afford the entry fee, and they become desirable when the developers give you NOTHING for years.

As an industry we need to put our foot down and hold our tools developers accountable.

It has to be money for product.

We pay for upgrades when you give us the upgrades. We pay for software when you give us the software.

Compete.

May the better tools win our money.

And in the meantime, we have Blender.

And the Blender developers out there making awesome paid scripts, content and plugins.

THEY can have our money.

Now listen to that.

I was a 3DSMax evangelist. I was a Maya Evangelist. I have pushed big software for a living for decades and sneered at Blender as the amateurish mess it was.

Now it isn't. And it is doing things far better than the big guys.

3dartists are a vital part of the entertainment industry- collectively we help create billions of dollars in wealth.

Don't we at least deserve good quality tools at a price that doesn't cripple us?

No more subscriptions.
Price points below 4 digits.
Support plug ins instead of absorb and abandon.
Quality of life changes.
Opt in upgrades.