In which case buying a perpetual license is out of the question. And then looking to make a portfolio to continue with a career. The more likely scenario is that this person was either a student using Maya for free and/or working in a studio where they dud not have to buy Maya. And this is why I said this is not the question really.Īnd the likelihood of this being a better solution for someone is probably very rare. Then 5 years later here they are needing to make a portfolio. That is a lot of money to spend when you don’t know if you are going to make any money. The cost of doing that and keeping up to date over 5 years would have been around 7K.

Lets assume this person for whatever reason was able to invest the money while learning 3D in a perpetual license. But are you assuming he rented for 5 years and then suddenly could not afford it?ĥ years ago he does not have any experience in 3D right? Where is he going to get the money to buy Maya at 3k perpetual? And maintain it each year for 800 usd or whatever it was. If I wanted a job in 3D I would spend $250 a year on Maya Indie (or Max) and learn my socks off. I follow Blender news with interest but I still prefer by miles to work in Modo 801. But Free is not always for everyone best. Blenders undoubted pace of development and “Free” has I think helped establish the Indie market, and for that I rejoice. An app is just an app, what matters are people core skills and experiences. But who knows where it will be in a few years time. I expect it will be rolled out world wide and LT will be canned. Look what the big bad Autodesk have done something good Indie licenses. But it will provide a new revenue stream and will be welcomed by many. Some people will still pirate, some people will still try to get round the student rules that is life. Many who would pirate or use a student version unofficially will now buy Indie. The Indie offering on Maya and Max, and the tightening of rules around student licences all makes sense to me. Those licence payers simply don’t blink at the price per seat. Maya is embedded for many many years to come in blockbuster movie pipelines. I don’t think Autodesk are committing suicide.

Autodesk maya indie price