VIABLE Adobe CC Alternatives

Communities Visual Arts & Design
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61

their creative software is just as bad.

Flame is a compositor, like nuke or Ae.

Foundry might charge 5k for nuke, but it’s a perpetual license that includes a ton of extras and a pipeline manager.

Their budget compositor, smoke, is 1500 a year.

Maya and 3ds, industry mainstay creative 3d programs, are 1600 a year.

Arnold, their premium raytracing engine, is 700 a year.

They charge 100/year for a glorified procreate app and their texturing tool that’s years behind zbrush, mari, or substance

Shotgun, their pipeline manager, is so-expensive-if-you-have-to-ask-how-much-dont-bother money.

etc etc

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I say, absolutely point to alternatives for other expensive software.

I still use Adobe products, but only because my job requires it. Not everyone has that job, and they have to start somewhere. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if GIMP, Inkscape, and LibreOffice didn’t all exist.

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Well, with Autodesk specifically, they’re actually pretty happy to give their stuff away for free if you are a student or non-profit or even just a start up company with certain restrictions.

They charge a lot because they like to deal with big companies with big… big budgets.

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Expense isn’t necessarily the problem so much as the business model that puts a vulnerable set of professions at a negative offset and scrambling to break even on labor they aren’t usually getting paid for in the first place.

You don’t see paintbrush rental or 2 part silicone subscription boxes taking off because it’s absurd not to own the tools your livelihood requires.

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the student stuff is a “first hit is free” policy if we’re being realistic. They want to keep people in the fold because they don’t sell something people can ever own. adobe does the same thing.

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It’s certainly not something for the little guys, for sure.

(Well, it could be. Within certain restrictions. Except Fusion360, which has no restrictions for non-commercial use.)

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probably worth mentioning that Dassault systemes does still offer perpetual licenses on their non-cloud stuff last I checked

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Yes they do, it’s a massive point in their favor. Those prices are the perpetual license, with a year of support tacked on.

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yep. In line with foundry stuff on the creative end. Mari costs 2k and nuke costs up to 5k, almost 10k if you get all their in-house OFX plugins. It’s still a perpetual license though.

Their pricing is actually probably what let adobe get away with the sub model for so long, similar to what autodesk does to “undercut” DSS in CAD

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Fusion360 is a demo.

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What makes you think that?

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If you want to do more “Alternatives to X” I would prefer that to be in it’s own topic. The Adobe stuff is a lot on it’s own (I mean, just look at your OP). It also probably would be the most searched for and having “Adobe” and “alternatives” in the title helps with that.

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Alright, Updated with Links, Prices, and Autodesk stuff

Moved the post to TPP because Editing in this tiny dual-pane markdown window started to become close to impossible.

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Edit: readded a cleaned-up version of the basic guide for those that want a quick reference.

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Alright, Formatting fixed and new apps added.

Next step is render packages and 3d addons

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look at the main article. zbrushcore is built into the pricing information already

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Alright, finally fleshed out, linked and priced the OFX section.

3d suite addons, Indesign and Arnold next.

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I’m currently pissed at adobe … again. For pushing DNG and having success with it.
Give it time, it’s gonna be ugly at some point.

Anyway, because … reasons I will probably revive my mac pro and get a license for a commercial RAW converter / photo editing program. And the one I have in mind is not in your list, which surprised me.

Capture One Pro

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It’s good that you revived this because I for the longest time didn’t know EVERYTHING H264/H265 had to be transcoded on Linux for Davinci Resolve. For someone new coming in, you have to pray they exclusively use DNxHD/DNxHR, otherwise for every popular camera out there with the exception of stuff that runs on MPEG-2, they all need to be TRANSCODED.

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Not to get this all too much off topic but the Atomos recorders (at least my Ninja Inferno) can create DNx files. So that might save you that step.