This could be bad news for those who have ZBrush
Faeryl Womyn
Posts: 3,294
in The Commons
Maxon now own's Pixologic, no more free updates
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My brother bought ZBrush on December 27 and it sounds like he got in just in time.
I got my money's worth I guess having bought it 8 years ago
but sadly this is happening with everything, not just programs sold on.
Purchased the PC boxed version for Windows in 2005.
I had a long and pointless fight with Adobe last month where they told me my perpetual license for Substance Painter no longer existed.
It was a circular kind of thing, with me asking if they knew what the word perpetual meant, them telling me that they did, and then them reiterating that my perpetual license no longer existed.
After being a hobbyist at this for a decade plus, I finally switched to doing this as my job last January. What I make doing it now would certainly justify the cost of the software, if I was just doing it for fun I don't know what I'd do.
It seems like it's just a bad time to be a hobbyist in this hobby.
...agreed
well as a hobbyist not making a single cent only spending, subscriptions are an absolute no go.
I will simply find alternatives when faced with that for any software.
...why I still use Gimp over PS.
Intersting disscusion in the comments section here
https://cgpress.org/archives/pixologic-ends-free-zbrush-upgrades-for-perpetual-license-holders.html
Same here ... hard enough finding money for a GPU but I certainly can't afford to add in expensive software - especially subscriptions (which are a complete no-no for me).
those people certainly write books in their replies to each other arguing the pros and cons of Blender
TLDR
Given what Maxon have done with other recent acquisitions, i was expecting them to change nothing for a year or so, and then make it subscription only.
Changing nothing for a year or two would mean they still have to provide free updates for that period, and drastically slow down how quickly they can recover the cost of the acquisition. Still having an option for perpetual license is some good news, but i suspect that is only there temporarily to tame the initial uproar and doomsaying over the acquisition. My money is still on it being pushed into subscription only within a year or two.
Blender's sculpting toolset is probably the next best after Zbrush, so i will probably be using that if Maxon make zbrush subscription only.
Oh, don't get me started about Adobe. I stopped with them as much as I could since CS6.
But I did pick up ZBrush prior to the 29th. I've always wanted it. Some Buckazoids dropped in my lap at the same time, so I of course had to take as an Omen.
I've a poker buddy who teaches it... I mean, what does it take?
There's a ton of tutorials. Decent documention on all aspects of the product that <cough> I wish more software developers would adopt.
I'll never learn a fraction of what it can do, so major bug fixes are just fine; I really don't need new features.
But I got's it when I can put sone time aside to learn w/o the damn meter ticking.
I will stop upgrading zbrush. I don't trust, what They will install with coming updates. My current zbrush is safe, and I can keep on using that.
I'll have to bite the bullet anyway and learn blender.
Ya, we probably all will have too. ;)
Blender, GIMP, and (while not free, a pittance for a perpetual license) Armor Paint (WiP, but getting better all the time).
I had to quit my Substance Painter subscription when Adobe took over as they wouldn't support Win7 - I did manage to get a perpetual licence on Steam that meant I could install the 2020 version. But I'll be moving on when I can as Blender's addons cover a lot and Armor Paint too.
So my commiserations to ZBrush users who don't like the Maxon style.
Don't forget to make contributions to the open source applications you use often.
For those who think Blender will be a major learning curve for them, there is another software. BforArtist is a branch of Blender, however the look of the software is different, the UI more like what you would be use to. They also keep pace with the upgrades for Blender, all scripts, plugins, etc that work on Blender, will also work in BforArtist, as well as following the tutorials. It's considered a good stepping stone to Blender. Check it out for yourselves and see if this may be good for you. The only thing I can not answer is if the Blender bridge will work with it.
This is the website for it
https://www.bforartists.de
This is their youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XpDPF1kqrOM3XZIdjSl8Q
The problem with Blender is that it slows to a crawl when your face count goes up. I've recently moved over to 3dCoat which doesn't have that problem and their toolset is amazing. It even has texture painting like substance painter.
I am subscribed to Blender.org's "cloud" / "tutorials" monthly sub at $11.75 (because a middleman bank is charging a fee for the Swift transaction needed to get the $11.50 to Holland from the US) and it's a great deal. LOL, I can turn it on & off too when need be, no problem. I've also bought quite a few addons at the BlenderMarket.com although I don't know what they total and have quite a few more I want to buy as well.
While I'm not thrilled about the now lacking of availability of ZBrush to me if an perpetual license is available in the future as in the costs of the recent past I'll eventually buy one, I just won't upgrade regularly or at all if the new features aren't exceptional to warrant an upgrade,
There is always 3D Coat... not exactly the same, but still useful for higher poly counts.
I fully expect Maxon will go subscription only for Zbrush after a short while... it's their MO... they did that with another sculpting app called Forger... I had it for a couple of years and then noticed one day that it updated to something called "Forger Classic"... I was like WTF?... looked it up and it turns out Maxon bought them, made some vague promises and then flipped on the "subscription only" lever once everyone stopped worrying. No more perpetual license for that... no biggie, I found something better (Nomad Sculpt) a few months before they killed the old Forger version... Nomad Sculpt is no Zbrush, but it works on an iPad and fits my needs.
I almost bought 3DCoat a few years ago but didn't. I was confused about the term "voxels" and thought they must be something different to polygons so no good for exporting to DAZ Studio. At that time there was a special $99 license for amateurs (non-commercial use) which, I think, has been discontinued now. The individual licence is now way out of my price range anyway so, Blender it is.
You can switch between voxels and polys depending on what you want to do. It also has a bridge between blender and 3dcoat. But yeah, it isn't cheap, but it's still a lot cheaper than zbrush. Either way though, Blender is still fantastic.
I have the zbrush 2020.16 standalone version and after reading this thread and did a little looking around on the web about the new changes coming. I did a back up of my copy and did a disk burn of of my zbrush download in my account & I took my zbrush offline and stopped updates I like to think that they would not happen. But now days I don't trust that greedy companies give a update to my zbrush version with one those ignoring pop up "you have to update your zbrush to get updates" messages like like MS did with Windows7 did when w10 came out . Grief.
More reasons to learn blender better
i used Vue for quite a long time until Eon went subscription. That is at least somewhat affordable though with subscription. pay for ever though. Its sure income for the company instead of people like me buying and only upgrading every couple of versions.
I have heard that about blender sculpting too. But i have also heard that it is a priority item for the blender dev team to rectify. Now that the maxon acquisition of Zbrush has happened, i daresay they are smart enough to see the amount of potential new users coming their way, and will make it an even higher priority
Doesn't any program tend to slow when the face count goes up, I have heard about this happening in Daz, Poser, Blender and a number of other software. Also CyclesX is suppose to be so much faster then Cycles for rendering now. I keep hearing how people want faster renders, which is why those who can afford it keep buying the newest hardware, particularly cpu's, graphics cards and ram.
The solution is simple! BLENDER!
As I understand (and I could be wrong), voxel technology isn't actually polygonal mesh. It's 3-dimensional pixels, each one representing a tiny volume of 3D space; and the math is different. To get polygonal mesh, the voxels must be converted into polygons and the sculpted model often requires retopology for practical use.