Money is often not really the deciding factor for a lot of users. In discussions with colleagues and students I hardly hear Mudbox mentioned, while Mari, Zbrush, and even 3dCoat are often discussed and talked about/worked with.
This in a major college here in Vancouver. Of course, it depends on the crowd you are talking with. Just my experience.
That depends on your circle. The cost of Mud is close to that of 3D Coat, I’d take Mud over 3D Coat. The cost of Mari is over $2K (US) no brainer decision between that and Mud. Autodesk focus is on ZBrush, they know that The Foundry is competing, Autodesk still dominates due to it’s CAD software it’s used for nearly designing anything in the world from Buildings to planes to anything in between.
It has already made it’s mark in the VFX/Animation with Maya / Max. The Foundry owns the compositing sector of the industry.
With all due respect, you really don’t know much about ZBrush or 3D Coat. Mudbox is well behind ZB, and got passed a year or so ago, by 3D Coat, as it’s closest competitor. The main reason is, well, we’re talking about Autodesk. The Corporation where applications come to die.
If the app isn’t making them a mad profit, or if it threatens the profit of other apps in it’s lineup (ie., Combustion, then Toxik threatened their uber-expensive compositing line, Flame Flint and Inferno), it’s getting put out to pasture. Nice and slow like. That’s where Mudbox resides today. One step behind Toxik. It’s close to being just a free add-on if you own a suite = no further development.
Without getting into a “mud”-slinging contest over which app is most best’est 
, you can just make an informed observation by watching the pace of development. Both ZBrush and 3D Coat have been delivering killer upgrades/updates, while Mudbox chugs along with minimalist yearly feature upgrades.
Sure Mudbox has it’s own charms, but it’s very limited in scope. You have to build your assets outside of it, and no UV editing capability. Conversely, you can build entire models from scratch and take it all the way through the texturing phase (including UV layout) in both ZBrush and 3D Coat.
Autodesk might be making one last attempt to keep Mudbox somewhat relevant, with this new pricing, but they aren’t about to drop a lot of $$$ to develop an app that is considerably behind ZBrush and not making them much of a profit. Once you’ve been bitten by Autodesk killing one of your favorite apps, you’ll begin to understand MB’s dilemma.
Without getting into a “mud”-slinging contest over which app is most best’est
when i saw the price reduction and 10 dollar a month rental plan that was the first thing that came to mind. they didn’t just lower the price for no reason at all, who knows maybe they will make it a part of maya and max.
3D Coat has made progress, but as many of it’s users as stressed it does lack behind Mud with texturing and to a point, overall workflow. When will Zbrush hit a roadblock in development, the only reason no one is complaining, the updates have been free up to this point. Mari price tag is too high, The foundry needs to make revenue, it is selling less copies of Mari then Zbrush and probably Mud, to make up for this, it charges over $2K for a sculpting package and high subscription fees. Taking that all into consideration, as mention, maybe Autodesk will package it with Maya, then again, maybe Autodesk will buy Zbrush.
You can do alot with Mudbox, it’s only missing mesh-mixing, python support and maybe you could say hard surface brushes, although there are other ways to do this. Mud is very intuitive, IMO Zbrush is more slapped together in it’s workflow. Add those missing features and they have a full package.
Look at Maya, it is getting it’s code cleaned up, and alot of other aspects, although it still has a way to go, it has made progress. It is not far off due to BiFrost before Maya will do procedural modelling, you can already do your own custom effects, some would say that is not completely expanded, as I said it’s not far off. Once that rises to the surface it will do it all, it’s just a matter of time.
Taking that all into consideration, as mention, maybe Autodesk will package it with Maya, then again, maybe Autodesk will buy Zbrush.
You can do alot with Mudbox, it’s only missing mesh-mixing, python support and maybe you could say hard surface brushes, although there are other ways to do this. Mud is very intuitive, IMO Zbrush is more slapped together in it’s workflow. Add those missing features and they have a full package.
i can only imagine what would happen if AD made the attempt or decided to purchase zbrush. at the end of the day its all about the work that is done with the tool, so no matter how slapped together zbrush is a lot of killer work is done with it. fyi not trying to take anything from the incredible work done with mud.
Again, you’re hyping up an app based on some fanboy’s hearsay. Not personal knowledge. Have you used 3D Coat or ZBrush? I know firsthand what Mudbox can do and what 3D Coat can do. And have dabbled with ZBrush during trials. I like Mudbox, so I’m not going to trash it for the sake of argument. But Autodesk has purposely hamstrung an otherwise powerful app. That’s what they did with Combustion, Toxik and now Softimage.
During this slow death period, ZBrush has taken an even bigger lead and 3D Coat has caught up to it and passed it in terms of sculpting capability. It has 4-5 times the brushes and tools Mudbox has…both in Sculpting and Texture Painting. It is the next best Texture Painting app, on the market, after Mari. So, I have to laugh at those claims that Mudbox is a better texture painting app. It’s not. 3D Coat and ZBrush were texture painting years before Mudbox ever started.
For example, you can paint Color, Depth (live normal map or displacement map relief), and Specular simultaneously on any given layer. Can’t do that in Mudbox. Only one map type at a time. That’s a huge time differential in circumstances where you want to paint all 3 maps. You also have a dockable/expandable 2D Texture Editor right in the viewport and can paint either in 2D or 3D in the same workspace, watching live changes reflected in the other. 3D Coat also let’s you work on up to 16K texture maps. Mudbox was limited to 2K until 2versions ago. Still limited to 4k. It’s just not even in the same class.
Now, if Autodesk would commit to developing Mudbox at the same pace ZBrush and 3D Coat are, then things would certainly be different. But since it isn’t one of their cash cows, you’re getting all hyped over nothing. This is what Autodesk does best. Euthanize it’s own.
Development has slowed for Mud, but 3D Coat never gained enough ground and neither did Mari. I don’t foresee them killing Mud if anything they will migrate it into Maya and develop it as a whole.
Autodesk did kill Softimage but the line between Softimage and Maya is very thin, the only difference Softimage had up to this point is procedural workflow, that is suppose to come as BiFrost unwraps. What annoyed people the most was the fact that Autodesk didn’t release BiFrost with a node based workflow right away, as was done with ICE it’s going to be gradual over time, and I can sympathize.
As I said Autodesk could buy 3D Coat, or ZBrush or migrate it into Maya. I think Autodesk is slimming down operations, while The Foundry is where Autodesk was when it purchased Softimage, and what happened years later. ZBrush and to a point Mudbox has already made it’s mark, Mari is gaining some ground but I don’t think Autodesk cares what The Foundry is doing, first of all Mari is expensive compared to the rest and second, Autodesk is probably focusing on making better software, if you slim down you can offer fixes faster and improve software.
Mudbox workflow is different, but I see people like lots of icons, and in-your-face menus, as with Zbrush and to a degree 3D Coat. Besides Mud was a pipeline tool, is was designed to work in conjunction with Maya / Max. 3D Coat and Zbrush decided they rather be a modeling package, although this is debatable… The Foundry is doing the same thing with Modo as Autodesk is doing with Mud, whereas Modo and Mari work together, it’s still in its infancy but in time you’ll see.
Some of the sculpts done by Craig Barr, and Wayne Robson just to name a few in Mud have been remarkable, including hard surfacing, which I’ve done myself the results were pleasing. There are a few things Mud is missing, if those holes were filled, it wouldn’t matter. Everyone has there own take on what they like, you may like to paint, spec, diffuse, reflection at the same time, while someone else may want it separate, as Mud offers.
At this point, who knows what could happen, with any software !
Pretty much every studio I know uses Mari so not sure why you think it didn’t gain traction.
I would like Mudbox to have something similar to dynamesh in zbrush before I use it for my sculpts. I don’t think I can live without it anymore.
All 4 of the programs (mudbox, zbrush, 3d coat and mari) are awesome… Only one of them has a lazy stinking “developer” holding it back 
I love mudbox more than the rest. I love the way the brushes handle on a mesh (compared with zbrush), and the simple interface for map extraction, and the way I can send directly to max etc…
I just wish Autodesk would pull their head out of their collective asses and do something more with it.
Having to make base meshes is a real headache.
Mesh Mixing is what Mud needs just like Zbrush needs to clean up it’s U.I etc. Mud already had dynamesh. I can do hard surface in Mud, I’ll create a tutorial this month, as in June.
I was confusing it with Zspheres, which there is an equivalent tool in Mud, called the “wax” tool. I do like Zbrush hard surface brushes, then again, I can do the same in Mud with VDM.
Mudbox development is at a snails pace, although there isn’t a barrel full of features that need to be added either. I just hope that we get surprised with a nice extension release and if not, well I won’t jump ship that fast either, I can do alot with Mud.
ZBrush will never be true 3D unless they re-write the entire program which you can I both can agree on they won’t and unless they would lure Mud users which a nice price, I suppose $350 would be nice, I would be hesitate to change ship, more hesitate then moving from Softimage > ProgramX as the only thing ProgramX doesn’t have that Softimage did was procedural workflow, all the rest is available and living without a procedural workflow for a few years isn’t life or death.
This is why it’s good to keep innovative secondary 3D Apps and plugins in the hands of private companies, rather than corporate behemoths. They are focused and hungry. Plus they often tend to communicate better with their user community.
If they see their market starting to drop, they typically put on more steam and try harder to impress. Autodesk sees a drop in market rate and they just trim the staff to practically nil, and cut the cord. That’s where Mudbox is and it is a shame. I do like it’s UI far better than ZBrush.
I will say this, though. Dynamic Subdivision and Voxel is going to be the future of digital sculpting. 3D Coat already has a big jump in that department, but Pixologic has made some movement in that area, too, starting with dynamesh (I guess their version of Voxel sculpting in 3D Coat). They hired Dr. Peters (is that the correct name?), the founder of Sculptris, which was/is a dynamic subdivision sculpting app.
So, that tells me they are investing in R&D to find a way to pull it off in ZB.
They can also get bought out when they are not a big company. There is one arena in which Autodesk dominates and that is Arch and Design.
I have much respect for 3D Coat, a one man team, unfortunately 3D Coat won’t make a dent in this area, that crown goes to ZBrush followed by Mudbox, Mari is very new to this area and IMO has features similar to Mudbox but Mud probably leads over Mari.
What is needed is for development to increase for Mud, add some new features etc. There comes a point when a program is “good” and then there is “silly”, and IMO 3D Coat has become more play software, like Bryce or TrueSpace.
How many actual contenders are there really, IMO three, ZBrush, Mud & Mari with the first two still holding their weight regardless if the Mud development team is taking a long break.
The average user wants to see features, features, features, maybe there is not a demand for this, maybe many are working fine with the features at hand so Autodesk decides to slow down production, of course it saves money but I’m sure if Autodesk said to their development team, we need (4) major features in Mud now, it would be done.
Autodesk shares are by far low at $52 a share all they could have done is cut back the development team, smaller team, more work less new things can be released in the time frame that is given. Autodesk is not hurting, even though everyone wants it to be hurting due to the recent EOL of Softimage the amount of money Autodesk makes off AutoCAD licenses is huge, that is where probably Autodesk has an advantage over The Foundry which is why I said it’s probably not threatened by them.
You would think if the company that owns ZBrush was concerned they’d invite Mudbox users to switch over at a low cost now that is if they were to EOL Mudbox, What are they are waiting for mass exodus, silly business move.
mari is a painting only app and leads the highend market… there is no competition for mari in that area… if you need a highend painting app there is no other solution…
I was confusing it with Zspheres, which there is an equivalent tool in Mud, called the “wax” tool.
Explain? Wax in Mudbox is a brush like any other. Zsphere’s are a mesh creation tool right?
What is needed is for development to increase for Mud, add some new features etc. There comes a point when a program is “good” and then there is “silly”, and IMO 3D Coat has become more play software, like Bryce or TrueSpace.
Not so sure. To me 3D coat looks like a piece of software at the beginning of it’s life. Software that with the right polishing (like a new logo!!!) and development has great potential to become a serious contender in both the hobbyist and professional arenas.
Mudbox on the other hand feels like it has reached (or reaching) it’s maximum potential to me. It is a brilliant piece of software that has room for a couple more feature additions.
I really love Mudbox and can’t really stand working in Zbrush (no offense to ZB users meant) - it seems so alien to me as a max user, so I hope it keeps going from strength to strength.
Oh and just for the record, I began on TrueSpace and now am a professional 3D Generalist so I personally wouldn’t really call it a “silly” piece of “play software”.
Thoughts?
PixelMango - What is the other way around that you are quoting that I said ?
Oglu - Mudbox is a good painting app as well !
Dr.Zenith - I started off to a degree with TrueSpace as well !
As I said if it is or will become a dead app, shouldn’t pixologic capitalize on it now, they don’t even though they should because nothing is official development may stop or it may turn around !
Uhhhhh…It’s Mudbox that’s practically a dead app. Not the other way around.