free software?! WTF is going on at autodesk?!

[@Neil3D]

Heads up, since publishing this, Autodesk have made available the 2023.2 release to PLE users so it's no longer just the day 1 version. And there's more/additional info on the landing pages regarding what's included and not.

[@hanelyp1]

Free as in beer, not as in speech. Play with software under this learning license for the period, then pay or get cut off, with all your files in this software's format.

[@legallyfree2955]

You can probably get your files out in a usable format, but all the time you spent learning the software is now useless, that's where the real hook is. That's the whole reason many of them offer free educational licenses.

[@Virt-ex]

What is so bad about it? You learn the software and then go work for a great company with the skills you acquired and earn big money… where all this negativity comes from?

[@ScottMoyse]

​@@Virt-ex people just love to bitch and moan basically.

[@markmitchell590]

@@Virt-ex Agreed. If it's a personal use then the files themselves by definition have no value. If they were part of a commercial process you should be paying for them.

[@claws61821]

@doopydoop Reality check: Most people don't feel entitled to productivity software for free. We're just sick and tired of companies that completely blatantly overprice everything and use other abusive business practices and have too much self respect to continue to put up with it anymore. To avoid the well deserved tradition of bashing on Autodesk, let's look at Ansys instead: Even with as many features as it has and as much research and maintenance as their development teams perform on it, there's no legitimate reason for their nonsubscription software to require an annual renewal of single-year licensure at the price of $1500 to $2000 per seat (assuming it hasn't been hiked even higher since I checked) and it's frankly beyond fraudulent to refuse updates and support to customers who don't pay for all the interim years they didn't use it if they wait two or three or five years to renew and who didn't contact support once in that time.

[@orpheuscreativeco9236]

That's cool, but too little too late. I'm satisfied with freeware. When I was a student I was floored by the price of software. So few graduates land a job that could fund such an expensive investment, let alone survive and repay tuition on top of being gouged for a program that will have a new release every year or a subscription to maintain access. I decided to explore freeware and I've never turned back. The community support and continuous improvement of Blender, for instance, is leaps and bounds ahead of the bottleneck of paywalls and subscriptions. Users donate because they genuinely feel like part of something and are able to experience growth in realtime alongside the developers. I don't know why I'm so heated about this. Times have changed and the industry needs to as well.

[@Trogleth]

Maya has an indie version it's just hidden for some reason. It's like 250$ a year which is a lot more managable

[@orpheuscreativeco9236]

@@Trogleth Hey, that's actually really cool! Had I known. Thanks for enlightening me! ✌️

[@stickyfox]

They want to get students hooked so they are customers in the future as professionals. We're all better off just using free software.

[@philmehrart]

💯 I started with Max then moved to Maya for the length of my career, recently I started picking up Blender as not only do you not have to deal licensing headaches, but the plugins are really powerful - very convenient workflow. Just need to go through the torture of learning a new app 😂

[@Vintage_USA_Tech]

Im a pretty big fan of the B word myself, I used 3Ds Max from version 1 to version 7 I think and just gave up on it since the price was just too DAMN HIGH!. I was off and on with Blender all the way back in the days when I stopped with Max version 7 but I just could now wrap my head around it.... I had been spoiled with the Max UI but when Blender 2.80 came out and they had a massive rework of their UI things started clicking with me.... and now Im excited to see what 3.3 LTS will bring to the table..... unreal what Blender has done and Autodesk is now feeling the pain.

[@plainswell]

I remain completely happy with Blender. For free. For ever.

[@TaylorColpitts]

Rhino (by McNeel) has a 90 day trial. That 3 month period is generous enough to really let you see what the software is capable of. They will even extend your trial license if you have a good enough reason. I think AutoDesk could really learn a thing or two on their end.

[@R67K]

Autodesk messed up, that won't rescue them. Blender is free no matter if you are learning or not. Unreal is free until you make money. Autodesk is stuck 2002. I started as a kid with a cracked version of Autodesk 3dsmax. As i got older i didnt want to reinstall my infected pc every two month, so i switched to blender. Autodesks licence behaviour, software and model is just not made for that. I regret nothing. Autodesk had so much potential, but they didn't use it. Instead of that they made money and stuck to their model...while others evolved

[@jirehla-ab1671]

There are like adobe

[@Bilangumus]

Lol, they are standard for engineers and architects. Withous autocad or revit there would be no buildings. THey are very advanced. THey have many softwares, don't compare it with blender wich is only for creativity not productivity.

[@kendarr]

@@Bilangumus what are you on? There were buildings before Autocad did you know that?, plus, blender is not a substitute for all autodesk software it's takes the same place as 3ds max and Maya, not autocad, in the same way that Maya is not autocad, different software for different use cases. Blender is used in production lines for games, vfx, and many others

[@bahamut149]

Essentially you just want free product.

[@R67K]

@@bahamut149I want that children and Hobbyists do not have to pay industry prices before they even startedto use it commercially.

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

blender + freecad replaced Inventor for me. Freecad needed a bunch of mods, but I'm up to speed. Inventor was cool, but I am an inventor not an employee.

[@aronseptianto8142]

i am very much interested with modding freecad just jumped from fusion 360 cause, ehhh, reasons it has a learning curve and things to get used to but it's so hard to find tutorial and recommendation since the community isn't as massive

[@nigratruo]

I would probably look at the addon for Blender that make it do CAD, Blender is getting so much more funding and is improving at a breakneck space: There are now youtube channels that just focus on showing all the new features in Blender that come out every few months, you can't keep track otherwise, there are too many. At the same time Autodesk makes sure they spread new features over a long time period, so that they can look like they are improving, while nothing really new happens. Ah yeah, don't forget that they change the fileformat between releases so that you have to be always on the newest release if you want to work together with others, a clever way to force people to keep subscribing, even if they are happy with the features and don't want any new ones.

[@Jin-Ro]

I used to use cracked copies of 3D Studio Max 2.5 and 3. The price was stratospheric as a teenager. I became really good at it. Never made money at it though, I went in a different direction. Looking at the price today, £250 per month, it's insane. So many youngsters out there that could bloom if they had access to this software to play with, but they're locked out. If guitar makers followed the same model as Autodesk, we'd have no Queen, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix. Stating that they can learn on another software doesn't wash with CGI. The learning curves are steep. If a company uses 3DSMax and you learned Blender, you're not going to be considered, or you'll definitely be at a disadvantage.

[@john_hind]

This licensing model of 'free or eye-wateringly expensive' in the engineering software space is really sub-optimal. I want an 'affordable with usage limits' option for those of us who work in small or one-person teams and will use a particular piece of software from time to time but not every day as a specialist within a larger team. If it is free I feal it is not worth the risk of investing the considerable amount of time required to learn it when the rug could be pulled out from under you at any time and with no notice (I'm looking at you Trimble and Sketchup!). By making opting in to real-time usage metrics a requirement at the lower tiers, it should be possible to devise and enforce a pricing strategy that smoothly scales from free for learners to very expensive for major corporates and is still affordable to freelancers and makers doing low volume or non-profit projects.

[@izakvanderwesthuizen793]

Totally agree with you.

[@schrodingerscat1863]

Done with Autodesk after they screwed over the community with Fusion 360. All the free testing, extensions, tutorials and feedback they got then screwed the community over. They can keep their crap.

[@Neil3D]

What are you most frustrated at over the way Fusion 360 played out?

[@schrodingerscat1863]

@@Neil3D Autodesk lied to the community to get us to put a lot of time and effort into 360 because they said it would always be free and open for hobby use. Then after we spent all that time and effort debugging, writing extensions, creating tutorials and generally making it accessible they locked it down. We could have spent that time making one of the open source offerings a more compelling option.

[@pyromancer3d]

I have recently gotten into 3d printing and wanted to find a compelling software package for precision modeling.. I can by no small margin afford Fusion in any real capacity and retain my own work (I haven't been able to test this, because I wasn't able to acquire it to try). I tried FreeCAD, and moved away because it requires so much work to get it usable at this point (Realthunder branch and other mods to get it up to speed). I did get to try it, and experienced several of the bugs (topology issues were the bane of my existence). I've moved onto Blender and utilizing addons to make precision modeling much more feasible. I'm having fun, and it's been mostly easy to get going. It's not the most ideal for precision modeling, but as a new user to these things, it's the lowest barrier of entry to even start trying. That said, I was never part of fusion 360 while it was free, that is just my current experience with trying to acquire and learn.

[@basspig]

I'm so glad I made the switch to open source blender in 2020.

[@kendarr]

I made in 2015 I belive, welcome bud

[@ianbaker8243]

I loved using Inventor for designing telescopes, clocks and all sorts of things for myself. But access to it has gone since my education license expired. Siemens Solidedge has a community license which is brilliant and I really recommend it.

[@riverracer]

Was using the full SE commercial version at work for last 2 yrs, but have changed positions now and don't have access anymore, so the Solidedge community license does everything i need for my 3d modeling/printing and continued learning at home.

[@nuxboxen]

@@riverracer it's actually very easy to setup a vm for safety then install a cracked copy from a torrent site.

[@klave8511]

Was really hopeful for Solid Edge but it doesn’t include CAM. You can 3d print but I couldn’t find a way to use my desktop CNC router.

[@s0ulger]

As a poor kid who's only outlet were the pc's he saved money for and built, who couldn't continued schooling; this almost brought a tear to my eye. I know it's not much, but as someone stuck outside every 'walled garden' this means a lot to get the chance to learn and use a product I cannot afford otherwise. Thank you.

[@rodolfoxavierneto6667]

Go Blender bruh, get into the community and you'll be very welcome 🤗

[@R67K]

@@rodolfoxavierneto6667 yeah like who is autodesk. all big companies are switching now. autodesk has waited too long

[@cekuhnen]

@@rodolfoxavierneto6667 well that’s works for a Maya / 3D max replacement Not for. AutoCAD to Fusion360 or Alias ;)

[@mrmachine5632]

@@rodolfoxavierneto6667 he might prefer software thats not a mess to work with.

[@mrmachine5632]

its called google and torrents, aint hard kid

[@dDoOyYoOuUtTuUbBeE]

Can't stand the current model of taking hostages with subscriptions for everything. We were used to buy our AutoCAD licence pet seat, work offline, then updates IF we wanted them.

[@masha_kasha5061]

The subscription model is good especially if there are new functionalities added on to the software sadly for some auto desk products this isn't the case and they get less updated true out the softwares life cycle so the subscription model makes less sense. It's kinda a rough place to be if your a smaller company. Also the who ever has a subscription model for the simulation software stack I truly pity them as in true auto desk fashion a lot of the cfd softwares from the early 2010s are no longer around or rebranded

[@frankblom8546]

I agree. The Autodesk software is becoming too expensive. We have 3 cad stations in our company. And the costs are skyrocketing the last 6(?) Years.

[@RonOneder]

Too little too late. Autodesk decided their fate years ago. Along with Adobe, Maya, Maxon, etc. They wanted to play gate keeper to an entire medium and only cater to established artist and high end production studios. An extremely short sighted approach that only a board room full of bean counters would appreciate. Ultimately, completely alienating all the new talent/users... good job.

[@UnknownGuest220]

I love blender it's free forever that's why I use blender

[@sam10bw]

Blender is moving in and looking to take market share from Autodesk being free and quite good too. It’s a bit too late for this now.

[@MicahWeb]

Wow! A full free year! What happens after this year when you are completely dependent on the AutoDesk products… because you learnt how to use there platform. I guess you will have to pay the full amount. This is a great marketing strategy.

[@rajendrameena150]

I think now open-source software are making grips in the market especially blender in 3d.

[@VREDexpert]

In the M&E space indeed. But not for CAD. You can’t even import CAD! Blender has Nurbs but surfacing capabilities are weak at the moment.

[@rajendrameena150]

@@VREDexpert I agree with you that open source CAD is weak now, even freecad can't compete with AutoCAD in 2d drafting. But Autodesk is seen that people are now hating Autodesk and Adobe, they want some free alternatives even if they find little difficulty. The culture shifting from studio work to freelancer is also responsible for this as studio can afford licensing fees but individual person can't do that.

[@masha_kasha5061]

I have a really good idea why they did this to alias. That software is used every where in the automotive industry and its really hard to find people who are very experienced with it. problem with this is a lot of new design students are less interested in the software since universities are pushing for cheaper or free alternatives. But in my opinion you can't change alias objectively it has no substitute catia or rhino might be close but they are not able to produce the same surface quality as alias can

[@masha_kasha5061]

one more thing I can add is i could easily switch from inventor to solid works but I can't and won't ever switch from using alias for any product design. The software is that good even though its not very friendly to new users

[@fbi805]

You do realize that Blender’s design system is almost as good as Alias and it’s actually free. Then you have the ability to cross platform Blender with Unreal Engine, Unity, Rhino, Zbrush and Fusion 360. Personally for me I honestly believe that Autodesk is a crooked company restricting the digital arts and design community solely for the purpose of being a money hungry greedy corporation

[@VREDexpert]

Alias is a class a surface modeler primarily with some extent to work with sub-d’s and/or combine them. Blender has nurbs indeed but surfacing capabilities are weak same as in Fusion. You can’t even display or influence surfaces continuity to a G3 level. Blender’s dev. focus is M&E and creative artists but not so much engineering tasks. The closest you can compare Alias with is ICEM or Rhino.

[@fbi805]

@@VREDexpert the developers of Blender have been working to enhance its engineering capabilities and because it’s an open source software there are plenty of designers that have created add on features for Blender for this specific reason

[@VREDexpert]

@@fbi805 show me with examples! I think it is easy to build a curvature or zebra shader via plugin system indeed. The underlying math for class a surfacing doesn’t exist as of today. CAD in terms of Catia, NX, ProE CAD neither.

[@isettech]

Software is free. License subscription is expensive and ongoing. They are going to a subscription model. The issue with the old license model is the barrier to entry was very high, so many people learning CAD used the competition from Sketchup to other reasonable priced tools. This competition is driven by the affordable 3D printer market as affordable tools become available for the masses. Autodesk is very much left out of this emerging technology and the flood of new entrants into the realm of 3D 3D printing who can afford a printer, but are turned away by the cost of 3D design software..

[@GeeCeeAte]

Too late autodesk! I was an autodesk professional for over 20 years. Got tired of paying so much money. So I switched to blender this year. (Haven’t used blender since about 2003). Wow does Blender blow away autodesk stuff!!! So much more powerful and Autodesk hasn’t updated anything in about 20 years. I hope the company goes under. No one needs to charge 10s of thousands of dollars for an outdated 3D program.

[@Culky]

When I was at college we had a visit from a senior guy from Alias Wavefront (as it was then, yes, I'm old) who straight up told us they were fine with students using cracked copies of Maya for learning purposes (not an official company policy, obviously). It makes sense to make these tools accessible for learning, especially when the prices (and now, subscriptions) are so expensive. Offering crippled versions at a still far from negligible fee is completely pointless.

[@PepeCheizen]

Had a similar experience years ago, we were on our last year of college, and we had some Autodesk guys come over to show some of the new stuff, as well with some automotive class A modelers from Renault. "The class A guys showed us how good alias was over the competition", then the Autodesk guys showed us a crude an unimpressive alpha version of their new cloud software ( fusion) Wich no one was interested in, and when they finished they did a quick round of Q&A. This was an open event for every one, even non students. So this random guy in his early 50s(no even related to the college) raise his hand and explains a product idea and how alias would be a perfect development tool, then to ask what's the price of the auto studio lisence. He didn't knew how to react when he heard the price, he was silent. then auto desk rep just told him to not worry and just sign up as a student(he knew he wasn't one) to get a free 3 years lisence.

[@kerbodynamicx472]

Fusion 360 is my favorite CAD software and probably always will be, it was there when I first got into 3D printing, and it has just about everything I need, modeling, rendering, and simulation, basically for free (using the education lisence).

[@fbi805]

Yea it was also free until the clowns at Autodesk got really greedy. I’ll stick to freeware like Blender, sketchfab and a few others especially when I can switch between software without any problems

[@SianaGearz]

Fusion is kinda spectacularly smooth, but I refuse to be held hostage by software I don't own so FreeCAD Link branch it is. As to other mousetraps? Siemens Solid Edge has a community license. Haven't tried yet.

[@fbi805]

Lmao the education license has restriction and Fusion 360 was as I stated before free for students, hobbyist and small businesses with 100k or less in revenue. Then Autodesk screwed everyone made it not free and restricted it for students and hobbyists

[@kendarr]

@@fbi805 what's stopping you from saying you're a hobbyist?

[@fbi805]

@@kendarr maybe you didn't understand what I said. THE STUDENT AND HOBBYIST LICENSES HAVE BEEN RESTRICTIONS FROM FULL FUSION 360 OPERATIONS. Now did you understand what I just said. No design software company(other than Autodesk and Unity) whether paid for or free has restrictions on student version of their software not even Rhino which is Autodesk's biggest competitor.

[@biserpetrov4596]

Thanks! I've been searching how to get it and this is brilliant :D

[@prostoCAD]

Thank you brother!!! I always watch your videos with great pleasure! In my opinion, the smartest solution with licensing would be if autodesk provided you to use your products for free around the world, but what is done in the program could only be redeemed after you pay for the time you spent on the project. Pay not for a month, but for the time you spend on the project as a whole. For example, there are small projects that take several hours to complete, and there are those that take years to develop. You spent ten years on development, but nothing happened, but how much money did you kill on software? This is where the difficulties arise. And if you spent time, but came to the desired result after a long time. You delete the file, make a new one according to the best practices, measure the actual useful time for the development and use of the software, and voila!!! You pay only for what is really worth the money. At the same time, the number of people who would like to work according to such a scheme, in my opinion, would greatly increase!!! Thank you!

[@pedroalcaraz9596]

Worked , thanks a lot!

[@TheGuardianofAzarath]

AD already had a PLE version of maya 17 years ago, but killed it round about the mid 00s. And as others have mentioned, there's the indie versions of maya and max for about £350/year (300 -VAT), and there's even Mudbox for £12/month, £100/year or £288/every 3 years, where as zbrush (which, unfortunately, mudbox is quite behind on) is now £26/month or £322/year.

[@Neil3D]

Yea that is just M&E stuff tho, I'm hoping this PLE process goes out and into every vertical of Autodesk i.e. Mfg, Civil, Arch and everything else

[@NUCLEARARMAMENT]

Maya wasn't owned by Autodesk till 2005/2006 when they purchased Alias. Alias formerly Alias|Wavefront were the creators of Maya back in 1998 after it became the spiritual successor to PowerAnimator, Animator, and Alias (Studio Tools) packages that were floating around at the time. Alias StudioPaint became SketchPad Pro which spun off into its own company but is actually offered as an optional software in Autodesk Alias AutoStudio, along with VRED Design(?), and Maya (not the LT version, if memory serves).

[@mateuszabramek7015]

You had to actually pirate programs to learn them 😂 Forget about Maya, just use blender

[@Trogleth]

That works for some people but blender modeling frustrates me lol it's mostly how easy it is to change pivot in maya vs blender for me I hate swapping mode moving cursor moving origin to cursor then swapping mode again... it just throws me off super bad for some reason

[@Traitorman..Proverbs26.11]

@@Trogleth Interesting how a changing a pivot point is the game changer for you. Enough to enter the “rent-a-software” exploitation of users.

[@HamguyBacon]

@@Trogleth Blender has a button that changes the viewport and navigation to Maya. Edit > User Preferences. Then in the Keymap tab change the key configuration to "Industry Compatible".

[@Trogleth]

@@HamguyBacon wait what??? I will have to try that out then that could be a game changer for me then

[@Trogleth]

@@Traitorman..Proverbs26.11 I mean I also know maya pretty well been using it for years and 250$ a year is pretty reasonable for industry 3d software that I don't see as being exploited. Now 300$ a month on the other hand....i do have some other issues with it as well but the origin point is the one that really throws off my workflow

[@stickyfox]

Wednesday F360 stopped working for me and I had to go back to the web and redownload it. It didn't work until the next day when the database "found" my renewed membership.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

Not sure if I'd say firmly wide open on that door, slightly ajar maybe... good summary though and probably lots of people not aware of it.

[@-bu6kzL]

I've been running a student license for 10 years by updating every year. Well they finally cut me off. :( I learned it in school and have yet to find anyone in my industry that uses inventor. I wish I had devoted that time to Solidworks.

[@kendarr]

Or fusion 360,try it its essentially free

[@legofreak5769]

i need a PLE for revit...

[@jasonhurdlow6607]

LOL. I'm not spending a year to learn software I can't subsequently even remotely afford. Though that VRED software looks like it'd be fun to play around with.

[@williamoverton7775]

do you live in scotland or something cause they did this with autocad maya 3ds max and a lot of other programs many years ago in southern CA. you should also know for a while modo was doing this.

[@brainnurture1828]

Thank you and love you

[@Sque333]

Blender I find to be way better. Im sorry but $300/y for a program your trying to learn is a no go.

[@leo_warren]

It's also worth mentioning Maya & Max indie licenses which are significantly cheaper and are only limited by revenue (I think under 100k), it's not free but cheaper.

[@Neil3D]

I had no idea they existed! I thought F360 was the only license with revenue based cost scaler. Good to know cheers Leo

[@Darren-kw4ih]

@@Neil3D your not the only one autodesk doesn’t advertise these nor are they easy to find on their website but they do exist

[@nsevv]

Much cheaper!

[@raV_3d]

There are some important limitations besides revenue. Still better then full price, but be careful.

[@kenabi]

heyyy.. pssst. kid, wanna try a hit? first year's free. honest.

[@alimustofa5705]

It can't get anymore simple than this. Thank you soo much howtobasic!

[@kendarr]

Not enough eggs

[@anshulsingh8326]

Every file should have a common extention so it can later be edited on other softwares, if other software don't have a feature just make it uneditable.

[@steevesmith1573]

Can’t run it on my laptop, can’t create directory IO error

[@davidvincent8929]

THANK YOU FOR THR INFO.

[@MonsterJuiced]

It's a tale as old as time. Adoption is the key to success. How can you get the genuinely interested to adopt the program if they can't even use it? Nobody's gonna hire them if they can't even use the software. Adobe knows this well and as far as I know has given up trying to pursue pirates. The real money is made via commercial revenue right? Many licences just for a small studio so they can sell what they make. The hobbyists are an important part of the machine. They, for fun, create mad quality asset packs for nothing. They make tutorials for nothing. For their own fun. Maybe it's their way of giving back since they've been using a cracked version for so long. Huge companies will be paying adobe huge amounts of money and they can afford it. What adobe doesn't want is a blender equivalent being adopted (GIMP). The only reason people don't use that nearly as much is because the UI is awful and it's slow. Blender is scary for autodesk and they know it. I work in a professional environment and if they're not using Maya they're on Blender. Infact they only use Maya for some things because blender has better plugins to do these crazy jobs faster. Unreal Engine got mad adoption. I was surprised at this but they earn a killing by allowing people to use it for free and commercially aslong as your revenue is below a certain threshold. This absolutely ensures people bolster unreal with more marketplace assets, make alsorts of useful tools that Epic can intergrate, receive goodwill grants and alsorts from massive companies and lock these developers in to preferring UE for when they want to make their big project where they will pay Epic a sum. It's the long game and it's a high quality long game with huge returns in assets and finance. Autodesk better stop worrying so much about Dave who might sell a 3D logo he made in Maya to Joanne round the corner who's starting a mobile hair salon.

[@l0I0I0I0]

Are the files you create private or do they have access and use rights of all your hard work, such as the case with their education version? Oh, it is the education edition!

[@fjnagle2nd]

Hey Neil, how've you been. Been a minute. my perspective on the 30 day free trial that Autodesk offers. Beats the sh!t out of Solid Works. Solid Works offers a whole 30 minutes in a browser window, last time I tried it. They were happy to extend it another 45 minutes when I called to complain. Just thought I'd throw in my two cents. God bless, stay well. And keep it coming.

[@thetechnocrat4979]

I have a question. Say if someone uses the Autodesk Alias and VRED PLE version to model something and they enroll in a competition with a cash prize, will Autodesk take any action against such an individual?

[@RCjunkie]

I'm a 64 old 1 man band, at my shop, Need to learn to draw in 3d, what do you have?

[@Bluejohn]

A 1 year license is an improvement but when you know that you will never be able to afford the full price of a licence there's still little point in diving in. Solid edge has a community edition which anyone can download, has very few restrictions and does everything which 99% of cad enthusiasts could ever require.

[@tolanoanglatest730]

Thanks so much

[@brkngaming5549]

Remember if pricey software turn to free, you're the products for that company

[@AdrienneFortinGarimbao]

True

[@jameslabs1]

The only true solution to the outrageous prices of Autodesk and Adobe; more options, and more competitors. This is just bait to hook…

[@thetechnocrat4979]

Yes, we definitely need more competitors. If only Blender could have NURBs in it! And Dassault Systemes should release something like ' SurfaceWorks ' in a similar vein to SolidWorks.

[@riuken1234]

@@thetechnocrat4979 Not sure if this is what your looking for but in blender Nurbs are in the add menu, Shift A, surfaces, Nurbs menu.

[@thetechnocrat4979]

@@riuken1234 I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.

[@equisetuminc]

I have had a Building Design Premium Suite perpetual since about 1990, and have upgraded it religiously at about $10,000. After taking LinkedIn Revit training, I tried to upgrade my 2019 version legally. For six months some guys with broken english have tried to get me to download, install, and activate SUBSCRIPTION software, knowing full well I had a perpetual license. That would null my PERPETUAL license account, and cost me $3400 per year. In other words, they give it out for free to students, and agencies so that they can extort businesses as a monopoly.

[@JonesCrimson]

Autodesk used to not even verify student status years ago, it was just perpetual education licensing. Now you need paperwork.

[@migovas1483]

problem is, are they adjusting this according to the income of the area they are marketing too? See how clothing, fast food like McDonalds, BK and other franchises adjust their prices to the local market? If they don't this they will NEVER get rid of the piracy.. no matter how 'cheap'.

[@CrowStudios2024]

good work king, love you

[@Neil3D]

Humbled, this pleases the king greatly

[@smartway820]

This is the best free software Ive seen. Respect.

[@kendarr]

Ever heard of blender?

[@anlpereira]

I’m waiting for this license for Fusion 360.

[@adekoyadavid4103]

How can longtime out of school be given opportunity to get free license to use for training himself

[@RichardChappell1]

Autodesk has made promises about watermarks in the past. They have almost destroyed companies datafiles with the virus like behavior.

[@genius1a]

No file outputs other than VPB means it's a dead fish in the water for anything serious I'd like to do. I think it would be wise for such suite programmers to do special restricted editions for different use cases - so it can be restricted for anything else, it can be time limited, but it serves a decent usecase along the testing/ learning time. Without it it's just not worth even trying for me, because I can't get an income along the way, while getting used to their UI. I'd rather use 4 different programs I can use from the very start to fullfill my use case.

[@nigratruo]

They want you to learn it, not really be able to use it productively. It is basically just a free edition to get you hooked, to invest that much time in it that you have to keep paying because now you have invested so much of your time.

[@pjbpinheiro]

Its working man!!

[@JimmyS2]

What most people end up doing is downloading Blender and be amazed how this free software can help them. also for those suffering with Adobe's ridicules license program and want replacement for Adobe Premier they download Davinci Resolve.

[@alexeisaular3470]

If I use any of this programs I would use then to make my own portfolio and when I get a job ask to my employer to buy me the license.

[@EatRawGarlic]

What happened to the SolidWorks maker licences by the way? Was that a one year thing?

[@andrzejjarzynski9329]

before Maya was bought by Autodesk it had a PLE license.

[@tahaouriagli570]

thank u helped me a lotNice tutorial.... Very helpful

[@phantom_not_chopper]

Eh! Did you do a magic trick at the beginning of this vid?

[@fbi805]

Lmao yea free for now. Eventually they’ll do to this what they did with Fusion 360. The only reason Autodesk is doing this is because they can’t compete with Blender and Unreal Engine both of which are free to use with plenty of updates and add-ons that are completely free and not restrictive

[@Dr_Axton]

Personally, I grabbed a student license back in 2016, and back then it was better in both performance and interface compared to the alternatives I had, plus the native support for other apps is really cool (I personally use ultimate cura plugin for 3D printing and geometry import in Ansys for durability testing). I extended the license because I continued my education, but it actually bothers me now that you’re limited only to the last 3 year versions, so it’s 2020-2022. My issue with it is that some app integrations don’t work if the inventor is younger than the app (for example, Ansys workbench 2020 that I use can open both my inventor 2020 and 2016 files, but using the 2021 ones will result in crash). I think I’m gonna stick to it for 3D printing modeling, though I know fusion 360 is pretty much the same.

[@manueldouglas5180]

How does one extend the student license without jumping through crazy hoops

[@Dr_Axton]

@@manueldouglas5180 you can grab the license multiple times if you still study or continue your degree. Pretty much repeat all the steps you did to get the license

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Great for those that need it I suppose, resurrect and fold Softimage into this(or better yet release it as open source) and I might care. These companies can't seem to grasp that they can't fill the holes in the market they themselves created.

[@Sembazuru]

I remember seeing ads in industry magazines of AutoCAD vendors offering the workstation free with a purchase of the license... Kind of gives you a hint on how expensive (and lucrative) the software licenses are... As far as the new free licenses from Autodesk... I don't trust them to stay free for very long. Autodesk does have a history here of either dropping their free offerings (123D Design anyone?) or adding more and more restrictions on what is available on the free license. I understand it, they are a business who are trying to make money to be able to pay their programmers (so the programmers have a place to live and food on the table). But the way they go about it just rubs me the wrong way as someone in the hobby market.

[@Grubiantoll]

Autodesk still seem to enjoy their position at the top, it would already be big leap if they would make Revit LT usable ( without wanting to off yourself) But they probably are not threatened yet, but when they will I expect quick overthrowing, Autodesk is not earning any Goodwill

[@waytospergtherebro]

So it turns out that not enough people buy subscriptions for buggy crap.

[@Neil3D]

They're doing pretty well with the subscriptions to be fair

[@dougsholly9323]

Watching this clip with the captions on is hilarious.

[@immewhou1755]

If i cant build model and use a cam to run desktop cnc router then ill never know if it works ive made a model n it be great but couldnt get it to run on my mechine after i paid so wont do it agian im straight hobbyists trying to learn how to use the paperweight i bought 2 yrs ago...

[@rav3n595]

Have you tried Alibre Workshop? It costs $399 and consists of Alibre Atom 3D, and MeshCAM. If you are running a home shop router, it may be a good option for you. No maintenance fees or subscription fees. You buy it, it is yours. If you want to upgrade, you can, but are not forced to. All work you do with it is always yours, not shared on a cloud or taken away from you if you stop paying subscription fees. I tested the Alibre software by using Alibre Atom 3D. I liked it so much I purchased a license for Alibre Design Expert. I am a retired engineer and have a home shop. Alibre is a good choice for home or small shops.

[@immewhou1755]

@@rav3n595 its on my list very high up but hard to pay for another program atm last one worked great till it came time for cam apparently it was 2d n more fore 3d print not cnc friendly but carbide and ...dang cant remember the other ones im considering in middle if moving and computer is packed up atm but its just hard to get confident enough to pay for the software when you cant get hang of using it like i pick up most things real quick like high mechanical aptitude and very common sence drivin mindset but cad cam is makin me feel like a kindergartener who cant fig out square wont fit in the circles hole🥴🤦‍♂️

[@tobuslieven]

Gee I wonder why they're being so nice all of a sudden. I'm sure it's not a trap like the dozen other times companies have done this before. They have the right to withdraw this "free" license at any time. As soon as enough people have invested their time into learning the software, they will withdraw the free license. Horrible company.

[@janmaker227]

First I totally support the idea that educational software shouldn’t be limited to people studying or being able to provide some university paper. Times have changed and everybody can learn via KZbin and self motivation. They should throw this whole educational stuff overboard and make it a basic right. Second: I still believe that this is whole black market avoidance strategy is useless. Just provide people with a limited PLE version, track them, and engage with potential customers. It’s the old story - the value of people using and investing their time into the software is way larger than some missed sales. Honestly most commercial companies will never use pirated software and a export limited version will basically be most key useless to them. So why bother about some corner cases. If someone wants to use pirated version they will do that anyway. Not sure if that all makes sense but I think these are just first steps and should flow into a general strategy that is super simple to understand and enables everybody who is not commercially active and this viable to learn and enjoy these Programms and create hobbies stuff. These people would never buy the software in the first place but having thousands of people use them could generate career opportunities and eventually sales.

[@jay-by1se]

This is why solid works made it. All the cracked versions. That's how people trained.

[@othoapproto9603]

Don't get sucked into autodesk hell. There are so many other better apps.

[@MatrizPolar]

Please, would you tell me any free and competent alternative to Autodesk Inventor (parts, assemblies and technical drawing)? Thank you very much

[@VREDexpert]

You have an alternative for class A surfacing besides ICEM? Here is the thing. If you seriously interested in getting a job as a surface modeler in the automotive industry you won’t come around certain tools that have being established in the industry for a long time and became standard in certain departments. You would probably not argue during your job interview that you personally think that there are better apps around. You would simply not apply for this particular job, right? But hey that’s fine too! Others would and are passionate enough to learn very specialized tools to prepare for a certain job. Which I assume is probably better paid and less competitive compare to jobs requiring skills in free tools.

[@AussieBIMGuru]

@@MatrizPolar there are alternatives at lower costs or with other vendors like freecad or solidworks, but they wont do everything you probably do in inventor currently. Change in platform needs change in mindset and workflow, and this is why most people are locked in. Try not to just try one platform, so you can identify viable ways out.

[@Wampert]

i studied and learnt Maya, but its just not affordable for me to use it, blender has everything i need, and if i worked for a big studio why should i buy Maya for my own when the studio already has it, for me Maya and all of this softwares are not for users just for companies that can pay it at the end of the day.

[@ladyville3]

I wish I could of still own it, I like owning stuff, so this is kinda a slap in the face to the people who paid thousands to own it, I’m stuck with maya 2020.

[@cekuhnen]

They use Alias for this ? That’s amusing and interesting

[@ipadize]

Its a trap.

[@fbi805]

I will never ever use an Autodesk software system again.

[@moominjuice2]

Think Autodesk strangled the golden goose. I'm more productive in 3DS Max than Blender as I've used it for many years. However, sustaining business revenue to warrant subscription is something I'm no longer able to entertain when Blender does a pretty impressive job as an alternative. Spent decades using Max but haven't bothered with it for over a year. Wish some of the same modelling concepts and interfaces from Max were overlaid in Blender to help those transition as they'd increase their user base quite significantly. Think they should have the same Fusion 360 concept where it's free to those earning under $100k... or at least something similar.

[@TheMadManPlace]

"FREE" for how long? "REASONABLE COST" for how long? Been bitten by that BS bug a time or 2 before... They get a new CEO and the story changes...

[@wanglydiaplt]

A sure sign that customers are abandoning ship in droves. I gave up on Fusion because of the high price and I find I do just fine with a free alternative. Oh PS the 'free one year licenses' are so bloody complicated to implement that they're not worth it. Also the 'free' version of Fusion is so crippled as to render it useless for all but the most basic needs.

[@ZekLullaby]

I studied architecture in a developing country, and let me tell you that everyone here is forced to pirate Autodesk, because in local currency a membership is way above what an architect salary may be. Even teachers endorsed their students to learn how to crack the software, isn't even a secret everyone knows, even the only Autodesk representative in the country.

[@woolfel]

I've used 3DSMax and some of the other autodesk products. The UI has always been horrible compared to other 3D tools. Then there's what autodesk did to Maya after they acquired it. Onshape does everything I need and it has a better interface. I found fusion3D bleh from UI/UX perspective.

[@gcharb2d]

I use Houdini Indie, $200 a year, not the easiest, but clearly the most powerful, for 2D, Blender Grease Pencil! 👍

[@kendarr]

Really? Blender for 2D? What about krita?, I don't work enough with 2d to understand the greese pencil

[@gcharb2d]

@@kendarr Just look it up, the best 2D/3D integration I have seen!

[@ozztheforester]

Autodesk blatantly killed so many great software or worse enslaved them. Many users don't know about this and they keep on using their products but if you have been in the industry for more than 20 years you'd probably know what I mean. I spent 10s of thousands of dollars on their products. Just steer clear of autodesk products if you are a new artist period!

[@inventorautomation1395]

Way better than my videos - must step up 😅

[@ferencszabo3504]

Autodesk ?No thanks! The Free Software community didn't stop,so novadays we have all what we need !The free DesignSpark version of Spaceclaim is perfect for me !

[@UpLateGeek]

I really like the Fuchsia 360 maker license, I used it a lot up till they put the restrictions on the number of active documents. It completely broke my account and it took me over a year to work out that I just had to archive (not make inactive) _all_ of my projects before it would let me create a new one. But I really hate what they did with Eagle. I don't mind my 3D models being open source - I'm not going to be selling products made from my 3D prints and if I decide to share them, it'll be for free anyway. But if I do decide to get PCBs made from an Eagle design, not being able to pop my spares on eBay or whatever is too much of a restriction, and I'm not going to pay for a French 360 subscription just to use Eagle. If they had a super cheap subscription for Eagle, I probably would've taken it. I'd prefer the old buy the current version license model, but they broke their promise to not make it a subscription product long ago. Instead I just spent the time to learn Kicad, and honestly with all the improvements over the years, it's way better than Eagle ever was. So basically as long as they've got a free maker subscription for Foldable 360, I'll never pay them a cent for any of their products thanks to the way they treated Eagle users.

[@Graham_Wideman]

Fucshia, French, Foldable? I'm thinking the actual product you're referring too is some amalgam, combination or melding of those names,, but I just can't put my finger on it.

[@UpLateGeek]

@@Graham_Wideman If Autoderp want to pay me to publicise their products, I'd be happy to call it by the right name.

[@Graham_Wideman]

@@UpLateGeek Ah -- that move's a Confusion 180!

[@carlosdipierro4849]

hola estoy usando un licencia comercial de autodesk inventor soy de argentina y dada la situación económica de mi país acá las licencias son muy caras yo en lo particular tengo un pequeño taller en el que trabajo y diseño para algunos cliente y la licencia me lleva un porcentaje alto de mis ganancias por lo que dudo que pueda volver a renovarla y me apena ya que no hay opción de pagarla en cuotas con tarjeta es mi cara para algunos países ojala hubiera alguna forma de que sea mas accesible

[@yoshinobuogawa9442]

As always, everything is super. Waiting for new cheats from your side

[@chigafaycal7309]

i think autodesk they must make open free cad software For beginners without use (cam or others faces ) ... To let the generations learn!!

[@architect-cc]

Autodesk never understood the importance of offering free software and making money with addons, or with plugins, or with object libraries, as Unreal Engine, Blender, etc. do today. I was users of Autocad, 3dsmax, maya, revit and other software for architecture, but the costs of these programs are prohibitive and updates are the ruin for any architect, so I switched to Blender and it was the cheapest and easiest solution to change all my architectural design system, and for presentations I use twinmotion which is great and free!!! Autodesk is totally wrong, the covid epidemic changed everything and they didn't change.

[@TanChoonHong]

Autodesk is probably responding to free Unreal Engine.

[@alexandreguitchkine2112]

Hi Neil... I'm à fan of all your videos... During my career I went thru a lot of CAD Soft : NX, T-Flex, Solidworks, CREO and of course, Inventor. I don't know if it's a right place to ask here, but I will value your professional advice: How do you think is it worth to start a massive Aerospace project with small office in 2022 and use Inventor as a main CAD system for it? Is there any upcoming changes in software itself or in policies that can turn all in nightmare in future?

[@Neil3D]

Thanks man, appreciate the support! Tricky question as it depends on a lot of things. If it's a "massive" project that you'd be doing, that would usually involve collaborating with a lot of suppliers and other agencies involved in the job. Depending on your definition of massive, such projects often require the use of multiple CAD apps to aid collaboration, but it depends on your role in the project. It also depends on what your design scope is, if you're responsible for something like fuselage design then Inventor probably wouldn't be ideal for that as it's nowhere near as strong as something like Catia or NX at surfacing. If you're the only team in a big group of teams using Inventor then you'll become a problem, so I'd first find out if that's a thing, if not, then go with where your skills are at and if the tools can achieve what you expect to be doing. But there's no immediate or forseeable changes from Autodesk that would make that a regrettable choice, but you also might want to consider Fusion 360 to leverage generative design as that's growing in popularity within aerospace.

[@nigratruo]

Well, beware of vendor lock-in, where AutoDesk knows how much time you have sunk into it and then just arbitralily raises the price, because they know that you standardized your whole business on it and can't really migrate away so easily. I remember switching to a subscription model made their software a lot more expensive, but people just don't think ahead and don't realize that AutoDesk with their completely proprietary product has them by the b****** and of course will use this leverage to raise prices shamelessly.