KeyShot Going to Subscription - Oh Boy!

[HaroldL]

I got an email from Luxion today announcing their new subscription licensing. I used to have maintenance for my KeyShot Pro license for about $400/yr. I dropped maintenance when I retired since I saw no need to keep up to date with the version we had at work. Subscription is now listed at $99.00/month. And if you opt for a 3-year deal you get it for $94.05/mo, WOW what a deal!!! I wonder how they can afford such a huge discount.

So, for those who have KeyShot for Alibre, how is this new scheme going to effect the Alibre/KeyShot licensing.

 

[MilesH]

For those who are using Affinity Photo etc. to avoid Adobe subscription, the writing is on the wall too.... https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/press/newsroom/canva-press-release/

 

[Abhijit]

My no-sugarcoated opinion on the subject.
I give Keyshot max 10 years.

I respect it for the cool caustics sorcery that it does. But that's about it.
Octane (Spectral-Unbiased), Redshift (Biased) & Vray (Biased) does it too.

Luxion is delusional.
Most of their target segment is ID Studios, Freelance IDs or Students, ie. the ones who aren't knowledgeable enough for the technicalities that comes with a full DCC + Render Pipeline.
Keyshot is limited in a lot of ways that Vray, Arnold, Octane, Redshift aren't. They can plug into 3ds Max, Maya and the same day plug into Houdini.
Keyshot doesn't even have OCIO for color management.

All Industrial Designers I know, one's who have "levelled up" have moved onto Blender, Houdini, C4D.
Quick look at the @renderweekly IG, used to be all Keyshot 3-4 years ago now it barely any keyshot.
The students are learning rendering in Blender.
Freelancers can't justify $1.2k/y for a very limited render engine. Because they can instead subscribe to Houdini Indie, C4D + Redshift or 3dMax Indie + VRay/Corona.
Studios are moving on because they can see the quality/capability difference.
$300/y sub or $800 perpetual licenses, maybe it can bounce back.
Market has evolved much faster and people have moved on while Luxion has been making the value proposition worse and worse.

 

[Abhijit]

For those who are using Affinity Photo etc. to avoid Adobe subscription, the writing is on the wall too.... https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/press/newsroom/canva-press-release/

Yeah this was a really sad news when I saw it in my email.

Hard to trust anything these days.

 

[MilesH]

Maxwell was the first render I used (2004). Pity they've never considered the MCAD userbase...

 

[MilesH]

For those who are using Affinity Photo etc. to avoid Adobe subscription, the writing is on the wall too.... https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/press/newsroom/canva-press-release/

To be fair, they have made this commitment in a message received today:

1. We are committed to fair, transparent and affordable pricing, including the perpetual licenses that have made Affinity special.

We share a commitment to making design fairer and more accessible. For Canva, this has meant making our core product available for free to millions of people across the globe, and for Affinity, this has meant a fairly priced perpetual license model. We know this model has been a key part of the Affinity offering and we are committed to continue to offer perpetual licenses in the future.

If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model, for those who prefer it. This fits with enabling Canva users to start adopting Affinity. It could also allow us to offer Affinity users a way to scale their workflows using Canva as a platform to share and collaborate on their Affinity assets, if they choose to.

This is the sensible arrangement that Alibre offers.

 

[stepalibre]

My no-sugarcoated opinion on the subject.
I give Keyshot max 10 years.

I respect it for the cool caustics sorcery that it does. But that's about it.
Octane (Spectral-Unbiased), Redshift (Biased) & Vray (Biased) does it too.

Luxion is delusional.
Most of their target segment is ID Studios, Freelance IDs or Students, ie. the ones who aren't knowledgeable enough for the technicalities that comes with a full DCC + Render Pipeline.
Keyshot is limited in a lot of ways that Vray, Arnold, Octane, Redshift aren't. They can plug into 3ds Max, Maya and the same day plug into Houdini.
Keyshot doesn't even have OCIO for color management.

All Industrial Designers I know, one's who have "levelled up" have moved onto Blender, Houdini, C4D.
Quick look at the @renderweekly IG, used to be all Keyshot 3-4 years ago now it barely any keyshot.
The students are learning rendering in Blender.
Freelancers can't justify $1.2k/y for a very limited render engine. Because they can instead subscribe to Houdini Indie, C4D + Redshift or 3dMax Indie + VRay/Corona.
Studios are moving on because they can see the quality/capability difference.
$300/y sub or $800 perpetual licenses, maybe it can bounce back.
Market has evolved much faster and people have moved on while Luxion has been making the value proposition worse and worse.

I use Marmoset Toolbag it's an alternative to KeyShot with features beyond rendering. Have you tried it?

I love the 3D viewer features:

I give Keyshot max 10 years.

10y before it's dead? With improvements in AI and GPU tech. coming, I don't think it will be viable in 2 to 3 years without game changing new features.

https://testbed-for-alibre-design.github.io/pressure_vessels/

Marmoset Toolbag 4 - 3D Rendering, Texturing, & Baking Tools

Check out Marmoset Toolbag, a powerful and unified 3D rendering, painting, and texture baking suite - the cornerstone of every 3D artist’s workflow.

marmoset.co

 

[Abhijit]

I use Marmoset Toolbag it's an alternative to KeyShot with features beyond rendering. Have you tried it?

I love the 3D viewer features:


10y before it's dead? With improvements in AI and GPU tech. coming, I don't think it will be viable in 2 to 3 years without game changing new features.

https://testbed-for-alibre-design.github.io/pressure_vessels/

Marmoset Toolbag 4 - 3D Rendering, Texturing, & Baking Tools

Check out Marmoset Toolbag, a powerful and unified 3D rendering, painting, and texture baking suite - the cornerstone of every 3D artist’s workflow.

marmoset.co

Hi! Yes I use Toolbag. Love it. It's like that small camera I prefer sometimes instead of taking out the whole rig.
Mostly use it for baking and rendering while I prefer texturing in Substance Painter/Designer.
It's a lovely software with great devs and a lovely community.
One thing is Toolbag requires some knowledge of mesh preperation ex Uv Mapping to import objects and it doesn't have CAD importers so it's a tough sell for the MCAD market for basic viz.

Have you heard of Maverick?
Very much like Keyshot with all the CAD importers and it's built from grounds up for GPU for $500 perpetual.
Maverick Renderer

If Alibre can shake hands with Maverick and somehow include their Indie/Studio Tier, that's a much more appealing option compared to Keyshot CAD which is very barebones.

 

[stepalibre]

FBX and OBJ from MoI or Rhino are fine for me even OBJ exports from Alibre. I use the Python API which helps. Maverick has a dependency on the latest GPUs so it wouldn't be a drop in replacement.

 

[aptivaboy]

I simply refuse to pay for subscription software. I still use old copies of Lotus and Wordperfect on CD-Rom for word processing. They work fine. Why pay Microsoft money every month when I can get replacement disks on Ebay for very little money? Even if I didn't pay for maintenance, my copies of Alibre and MOI3d would continue working, and as long as they aren't subscription based I'll continue supporting them and buying maintenance.

Back on the rendering topic, I've been experimenting with Daz3D for awhile now. It offers OBJ import and the results aren't horrible. I'm sure with some work I could make it even better. This is a quick mashup of a Star Trek destroyer with a starfield added as a backdrop. The nacelle and pylon were done in Alibre, the saucer in MOI3D. The engine nacelle and pylon are perfect, but the OBJ saucer import from MOI3D needs some work, maybe a run through Netfabb. Still, its a start and above all, Daz3D is free to download (though assets will cost you). If you aren't a professional, and don't want to pay the subscription fees for Keyshot renderer, there are other options out there.

 

[JimCad]

I too will not pay subscription.

Jim

 

[stepalibre]

I too will not pay subscription.

Jim

I have subscriptions that pay subscriptions.

 

[Ken226]

As long as the version that comes with Alibre stays as-is, I'll survive. Kinda already paid for the perpetual license, so I doubt that will change.