My subscription is due for renewal on 9/11/2009 and the price is now $595.00,
the last price I remember was $480.00, though that could have been a couple of years ago.
Max 2010 for me has been pretty much a dog, though it seem to have improved some lately,
maybe the service pack. I find little that’s innovative, but then I’m not up all the Ribbon Tools and find pretty much what I need in the old Poly Options Panel.
I suppose I will still renew though I don’t really need to put more on my finances.
Not renewing will put me in a position to pay more later to upgrade.
Anyone have a quote on their subscription that is recent?
Is it as high as my quote?

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

Same here Don. More money for the subscription, but I opted out this time, for the first time in many years. My Max 2010 arrived and has been sitting on the shelf since. I can’t justify the upgrades for all of the plug-ins I use which makes each release more and more expensive. My typical client doesn’t get, or use, the Max files so version compatibility is not an issue. The last few versions had 3rd party software tacked to them and a number of bug issues that have not been resolved for several releases; that is not innovation or a product upgrade. Also, along with the time it takes to reload the software/plug-ins/patches on each of our render servers year after year, it just gets plain OLD. We don’t have a “tech guy” so when a computer is down, someone is not working. We are a small shop scrounging for work and the “we can’t tell you what’s next” attitude of AD was the real deal breaker. I don’t shop at stores with poor customer service or shoddy products, why would I keep feeding a company like AD?
I had a subscription to AutoCad years ago and I found an alternative that was much cheaper and light years ahead of AutoCad. There is no subscription and when they release a new version it not only has new features but the bugs that were in the last release are fixed too. And NO SUBSCRIPTION! I get to see what the new features are in advance of my buying decision and I happily upgrade each time because I know what I’m getting...go figure. I’m looking for that replacement for Max but haven’t fond it yet. Maybe since I finally cut the cord (or revenue stream to AD) I’ll be able to look with a clearer mind.

Don, maybe you can use this page as an actual quote. It says $495 for 3ds Max/Design.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1089337

E. K. Anna Hennequet [FA]

Hi Don, I know how you feel. I came to realise a couple of years ago that 3DSMax wasn’t the best solution for me. When I started on Subscription in 2007 it was very expensive for me because I had missed the 2006 upgrade and there was also a fee to pay to join Subscription. I was pretty happy with the price and benefits after that (compared to full upgrade pricing) but then last year the price went up substantially and it teeters on unaffordable for me now. (For a double whammy, here in England many living costs have also increased yet income hasn’t stayed in line). I had also chosen to purchase Mudbox from Skymatter and now that is more than twice the original price.

My 3DSMax Subscription is due at the beginning of September and I only recently found out there is a Mudbox Subscription. Last year, on receiving Mudbox2009 I asked about Subscription and there were no plans that my Reseller was aware of. After a couple of phone-calls to my Reseller, I have handed over my credit card for the princely sum of £1018.23! That comprises £316.73 Mudbox Subscription for last year (including a late payment charge), £431.25 3DSMax Subscription, and £270.25 Mudbox Subscription for the next year. I’m not going to tell my wife - and we normally have the kind of relationship where we can talk about anything!

I can’t afford to upgrade my PhotoshopCS or Painter8 nor upgrade my PC.

The question I ask myself is whether I’d have been better pulling out a couple of years ago and effectively accepting my initial investment of £3500 for Max and Character Studio as a loss. I keep going because it’s still not the most expensive hobby I could have and I still hope to gain employment one day!

Is it ok to use ‘Off Topic’ as a form of counselling/release? ;o)

Lee.

AMD PhenomII X6 1090T 3.21GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5800 1GB, Windows7 64bit

Anna,
Thanks for the link, I have written the reseller asking if they can meet the suggested retail price mentioned on the page.
If they say no, I will see if I can find one that will, if I complete the upgrade.
Big help, I looked but didn’t find anything.
-------

Wow, I hear the pain from you guys.

-------
Kevin,
Not sure what I’d do if I were in your position, I’m not a very good business man,
one good reason not to be in business for myself.
I get kind of attached to stuff, Max is kind of like an old friend I’d really hate to part with or see drift away,
even though I should have stopped buying (charging) all my software and hardware years ago.
I have a stable job, though it’s not an endless stream, it’s reliable.
Let me know if you find something that matches Max for ease of use/features.
One major thing that gets me about Max is the number of crashes, especially when a scene gets complex.
It’s not often I get inspired these days, but too often when I do, it turns into a crash-fest that then I have to spend time resolving.
Sure, I know, let’s debug and find out what’s causing the problem,
but problem solving gets old too. Guess I just get tired. (sniff, sniff) :)
Ok, off to commiserate with Lee for a while…

:)

----------

Lee,
I totally understand how you feel, I too am a hobbyist.
I still enjoy using Max and don’t really want to let the subscription slip,
though I am trying to trim down all the software purchases/upgrades I feel I can do without.
I don’t regret having bought into Max back in 2000 but do kind of miss the excitement I used to feel when there was a new release.
About the only thing I am looking forward to in upgrades is the Unity game engine which I am getting into these last few months.
Max is an important part of that though, I need to model.
I know I am not as sensible when it comes to purchases as I should be,
I am pretty conservative when it comes to things but haven’t wheeled in my software neediness nearly to the degree where it’s healthy.
But, the financial crunch is becoming more of an incentive.
To further bare my soul, I am paying a guy almost as much as I make an hour to do some scripting for me so I can have interactivity in my games.

Well, hope you find a way to tell your wife (without additional damage),

:)

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

My last subscription was £375 (excl. tax) back in January.
£375 + 15% tax is the £431.25 Lee mentioned (correct me if I’m wrong Lee).
I would have paid more than that because the tax rate was changed (from 17.5%) due to the “credit crunch” i.e. the banking system going into self-inflicted meltdown. Knowing my luck it will go back up (probably to 20%) before mine is due again :(

Max 4.2 through 2012 (SP2+SAP).
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

That would be 707.938 USD.
Yowsa, that’s the cost of the upgrade from 2009 to 2010.

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

Steve: I hate it when prices are listed ex vat - especially this time when the tax took my bill over a grand! Glad it’s not the ‘full’ 17.5%! I hope you get to your subscription renewal before vat goes up - but also hopefully before Autodesk raise prices again.

Don: it’s partly familiarity with Max for me too, although there are other reasons such as the price of competing apps back then and the fact that Max has been one of the main tools of industry. Times have changed and my needs have changed too but the fact that we can’t sell our licence makes it difficult to switch. Apart from when I was at Uni I’ve not used most of the tools that Max offers so each upgrade I’ve technically been buying things I don’t need. (I accept it has always been my choice though; and I doubt I’d change if Autodesk allowed me to sell my licence!)

It really does seem that the way forward is to ditch the all-in-one 3DSMax/Maya/Softimage. I envisage a ‘studio’ app for filming and individual apps for superior, efficient, model creation and animation. I imagine this idea is flawed because where exactly would you determine the boundaries of each toolset?  I’ve noticed over the years though that plug-ins and specialist apps offer better tools and efficiency than the all-in-one apps can.

AMD PhenomII X6 1090T 3.21GHz, 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5800 1GB, Windows7 64bit

The problem with going down that route (though in certain respects I too think it’s “better") is that the sum of the cost of each individual package is always going to be more than the cost of a single do-it-all package.

Max 4.2 through 2012 (SP2+SAP).
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

The reseller got back to me on the quote and it is the same as the web page ($495),
she said she made a mistake. A fellow from the same company contacted me a couple of weeks ago
and quoted the same ($100 more) price. They must have both been reading from the same page.
So, not really much of a price hike, then. I still have a few weeks to think about it, but hopefully will renew.
I have decided to work in 2010 now and will see how it goes.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot, one reason I stopped using it before was the FBX exporter doesn’t work right with Unity 3D.
Going to have to see if I can use the 2009 exporter to read the 2010 scene files, don’t think it’s going to work, but maybe…

EDIT 2: I’m exporting from Max 2010 using the FBX exporter and it works fine, a little less convenient than having Unity just read the change in the file on it’s own, but still very good.

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

That’s good to hear Don. It’s very possible that they made a mistake. There are several other products on that page that are quoted at $595.

E. K. Anna Hennequet [FA]