How do we download our license to our machine so we can still use the last good version of Zbrush before Maxon switches to subscription? We can still use this version indefinatly right? I’d like to be able to use zbrush without being online and without having to connect to the server to check my license. I’d like my license to be on my machine.
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I loved Cinema 4d from Maxon. I owned it many years ago until it was moved way out of reach cost wise. (I got into it because of a free version they gave away on a magazine cd. I upgraded to a full version shortly after. Then the investment cost just flew out of reach and so I moved on. Shame really as the interface just clicked with me and even now I have a quick look around the maxon site from time to time and dream. lol. (I dont and never will subscribe for software. Stubborn maybe. 
I would rather save and purchase it later.
Zbrush 2 was initially purchased for me by one of my Aunts and I ended up paying to have a mac version later on. I have used it for illustrations and my own little games that I used to make. Still love it.
I was always surprised by the free upgrades. Never made sense but of course I was never going to say no.
I can only hope that it all ends up working out for most people/artists and not just for a few privileged folks at the end of the day.
I guess we will wait and see.
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I’m really scared. I’m not a professional 3D artist, but I’ve always been a serious 3d hobbyist, and I’ve wanted to have this software since I was a kid. I have watched this forum for almost 15 years with great interest. A year ago, I finally raised my money to buy a full Zbrush. Now I’m not certain about the future.
I think it is a great software, with the best community, and really great people behind it. I would be really interested in paying for the upgrades, but if the prices will cross certain threshold (from what I saw Maxon’s prices, it is very likely to happen), I won’t be able to continue with my hobby (at least in a way that I imagined till now).
I believe that this software gains a lot from very active community full of big players in the industry, freelancers and hobbyists exchanging their thoughts and experience.
I know it is all-business in the end, but I believe, that if not for these people, Zbrush wouldn’t achieve its greatness.
I don’t want to say “RIP Zbrush” yet, I really don’t see any good alternative for digital sculpting software. And I want to believe that future prices will be achievable by me. But I have a lot of concerns about it.
(Sorry if my English sucks, speaking out of heart with a little language skills)
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I literally use Zbrush every day for work and have loved it since 2.5. If this goes like so many other company buys, it will, at the very least, raise the cost of doing business for me and that blows. There’s no part of it that doesn’t suck. I’ve evangelized the hell out of Pixologic for nearly 20 years. This is sickening to me and I’ll be bracing for impact with bad times to come until I see some proof to expect otherwise.
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I just thought. Will they give us C4D lite to play with… lol
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Howdy Pixolator, Aurick and the gang,
I’ve been off and on here since Lord of the Rings came out and ZBrush was really showcased to the world. I have enjoyed this software for so many years now it’s hard to remember not being able to sculpt directly on a model. But not only has the software been a modern marvel, the company Pixologic, has been a beacon of how awesome a software company can be. It truly has been great working with Pixologic over the years.
I don’t know what the motivation is behind this, maybe personal and if that is the case I wish everyone involved well. But I can’t help but think this is the last time we’ll see an independent software company that actually cares about it’s customers. I don’t know much about Maxon or their software but I can’t imagine they will compare to this relationship.
But who knows. I’ll be optimistic for now.
ZBrush was the game changer. The incredible CG that has become commonplace now is because of ZBrush. As a freelance artist, I cannot stress how grateful I have been for the free updates I’ve received since v2.0.
Thanks,
Wyatt Harris
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I come from the other side a bit… Cinema 4D was the first 3D program I learned many years ago and then I started incorporating Zbrush about 5-6 years ago into my work. I for one can tell you that I am thrilled about this because MAXON is a great company with many talented developers who I know. I think many people think MAXON is a huge company like Adobe or Autodesk but I can assure you they are literally not even close.
Personally I’m excited about the development advancements that will come out of this hopefully. Think about the animation capability’s of C4D combined with the amazing tools inside of Zbrush. Not mention the ridiculous amount of 3D party render engine support inside of Cinema 4D. Thinking of Corona and Arnold specifically. They have some of the best integration in Cinema 4D.
Along with all this there are definitely areas where Zbrush could improve tremendously. Looking at you (UX)… But at the end of the day the last thing anyone wants is Pixologic to go bust because of their incredibly generous pricing model.
I’m just hoping for the best and that MAXON can give all resources Pixologic needs to make Zbrush even better than it already is. Lastly I really think we may be surprised at how they handle any changes to the pricing models.
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What is Maxon like for allowing re-activations of older software? I remember when Autodesk bought XSI that they wold only allow re-installation for a small number of years. Once that passed I couldn’t reinstall XSI Foundation after hardware change, because they wouldn’t let the activation servers activate it. Would hate to have he same thing happen to ZBrush.
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I wish I could see one positive thing coming out of this but I honestly don’t.
I’ve been a pixologic fan for so long because of the amount of care and love they put into Zbrush or their community is something that should be more of a standard in the cg world.
I have a lot of trust in the Pixologic team and wish them all the best but I don’t have any faith in Maxon or acquisitions like this. More often than not the software takes a turn for the worse and the conditions for their user base turn sour.
Especially with Maxon all their other acquisitions have adopted a subscription only module while development for those software packages slowed down.
It has been a while since the announcement was made public and even though some time has passed my feelings about this situations haven’t changed from my gut reaction.
Despite that I hope I am wrong and this will turn out to be a new milestone for Zbrush but I highly doubt it.
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Oh, didn’t post for a very long time.
There is nothing one can do.
As a German, it feels a bit unexpected that a German 3D company buys an US 3D iconic software. On the other hand C4D has it’s place in motion design, mapping and so so many other parts. What scares me is that Maxon is a 100% daughter of Nemetschek, another German company since 2018. They are focused on architectural software………do you guys get this soulless Autodesk vibes??
Maxon already acquired Red Giant and my loved Trapcode Suite. They acquired Forger, a small sculpting app for IOS, just to send my version into “no support Death Valley “ and opening a new app with almost nothing additional than C4D connectivity and……subscription.
Being really hit hard by pandemic lock downs, subscriptions are simply scaring me so much. I am already in that trap from other companies. It’s a nightmare as soon as your business gets into pandemic trouble.
I really do hope it’s all getting fine for you guys. I mean, some of you are almost like friends or relatives I “know” for such a long time . All the best from my side.
Btw. I am really missing Joseph Drust for quite some time already, such a handsome person.
But haven’t been here very often last years.
Wish you happy holidays and a tremendous new year, hopefully……
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Can the community do something about this!! I just join the zbrush community, and love zbrush (price, feature and not too high demand on hardware). I am a Truespace user ages again, and switch to blender (no money to spend on all those hardware hungry, and super expensive software). It’s really a very sad day for zbrush user, and going back to figuring out blender again!!) (Words in my mind when I find out this is going to happening, Fxxk, shxt, FXXK, FXXK…!!!)
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Sad to see one of the few good things left in the 3D world end up under the heel of Maxon with their subscriptions and outrageous prices. All that goodwill that Pixologic earned through the years thrown down the toilet. Thanks for that shitty Christmas present…
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I’m sharing the concerns of all Zbrush users about the future. I don’t know what it will become after the “New Dawn”. We still don’t have all the details so we pragmatically speculate for the worse.
Zbrush is more than a software for me. When all was desperate, and I had my fair share of despair, I had at least one thing to wait for : the last version of Zbrush.For me It is a humbling experience, a different take on UI, a masterpiece of software development, an example for innovation management and have an enthusiast user/fan base.
Digital sculpting wasn’t even a thing when it started, and more 20 years after the first version, it’s an industry standard and it’s still the best thanks to the awesome work of Ofer Alon and is team. They seemed to have a long term plan to make it grow filling a box of feature, year after year. And I grew with it as a person and as an artist. I learned a lot with Zbrush. Thank you Guys.
There’s some big technological challenges coming at the horizon of this “New Dawn” and things will be different but if there’s one thing that Zbrush learned us to do, is to manage the difference.
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Years ago Maxon didn’t allow you to upgrade after a few years have past, if indeed you hadn’t bought the last few upgrades. Which forces one to buy a full version if you wanted to have a path for upgrades again.
I just hope Maxon doesn’t become even more arrogant and act like they saved Zbrush.
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I first learned Zbrush in a college class. It was an amazing experience, and digitally transferred the sculpting of the real world. However, when I started working personally, I had been sculpting using Blender, an open source free program due to a tight budget. Blender has a pretty good sculpting feature and can do most of the work, but it lacks some features compared to Zbrush and has a lower maximum polygon count to work with. Then, at the last summit discount, I was finally able to purchase a perpetual license for Zbrush. It was a hefty expense, but nonetheless all users appreciated Pixologic’s upgrade policy, so I didn’t worry and believed it. But I am very sad to hear this news today. The Zbrush I wanted was not something I had to pay for monthly. I’ve used Maxon’s cinema 4d to create motion graphics a few times, and I’m quite impressed with its capabilities, but I don’t like their pricing and acquisition history. They acquired Forger, a sculpting app for tablets, discontinued updates by classifying their existing perpetual licenses as ‘Forger Classic’, and announced a new Forger, available only with a new monthly payment license. After hearing the news of the acquisition of zbrush, Blender developers said they would accelerate the development of the sculpting feature. (Link) I might have to consider using Blender for sculpting again. 
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I’m sad to see Pixologic go to Maxon. I was a long-time user of C4D but constant price hikes on perpetual licenses and the move to force more subscriptions put me off and let my licenses lapse in favor of other solutions. (Not that I didn’t like C4D, but the cost and support issues left me behind.) I’ve used Zbrush since 1.5b, but I can see the writing on the wall once Maxon gets their hands on it. I’m predominately a hobbyist these days, but Zbrush was a truly unique product and I’ll be sad to see it go the way of all other small unique products–that is to be buried in some all-encompasing, expensive suite where it will slowly languish.
Can’t honestly see the upside for Zbrush license holders. Having worked with Maxon before, I’d be wary to get caught in another investment treadmill. The “we’re all sworn to silence” approach to acquisition leaves me cold. If this was truly good news for the community, they would be hitting the news from the highest rooftops. My only hope is that we can keep the current rev of Zbursh, at least for a little longer before Maxon sweeps in. I feel fairly certain that Maxon didn’t buy Zbrush to continue to hand out free updates and watching how they monetized C4D loyalty, I can only cringe imagining how they will handle Zbrush.
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This leaves me with a feeling of intense dread. I don’t know C4D, but a vibrant & truly creative community can only exist when software is financially accessible. (looking at you Blender) Thanks to free upgrades ZB has been that sort of space. We grow so much here because of the sharing of resources and knowledge & because no one is getting locked out.
Every program that finds a wonderful niche & then gets bought by a big fish seems to be doomed.
I realize Maxon isn’t Autodesk but it still feels worrying.
A bit off topic but I’m keeping an eye on digital sculpting Apps. Nomad is so good & it seems like that arena might be the new frontier down the road. Plus there is no big cost barrier at the gate.
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Until Nomad is bought out by Autodesk, Adobe or Maxon.
Plus sculpting on an i-Pad is NOT a good alternative for many of us. my eyes hurt when i look at my SWITCH for too long, now imagine trying to do that for LONG periods of time? no thank you. it looks like it’ll be the High Seas, or Blender for me. cause eventually the 2022.2 won’t work with Windows 10 or 11, or whatever. or Maxon might just kill our Licenses. i love Zbrush enough im even willing to pay for Updates, but paying $94.00/mo or billed annually – $59.91/mo is NOT going to happen. Zbrush could do the sculpting FOR ME and id tell them to take a Hike, for that price. and that’s EXACTLY how much Cinema 4D costs per month. Morons. Utter Morons.
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If the guys at PIXOLOGIC taught us one thing over the last years: They are always supportive, passionated about their ZBrush baby and always surprised us with new “free” upgrades - so maybe we should all stop crying before we even know any more facts…
I don’t think they would easily throw their baby under a bus…
We should be thankful for all what they did in the past and stop complaining before we even know further details.
They always said (here and there) that free upgrades might disappear one day.
Well each year they pushed ZBrush to another level and yet never charged a dime.
Thank you for that!
How can they survive if no money comes in - except of from new users.
At some point they have to - to survive and be able to keep going.
Me too is hoping for free upgrades to continue though - but I also understand the other side.
Let’s see what they are up to and maybe - just maybe - we will all be surprised once again.
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@VISEone I don’t think anyone is saying anything against the developers at Pixologic. I think people’s concern is that once they are owned by a different company, they won’t be able to make all the decisions themselves. They won’t be the people chosing the pricing. It will be Maxon as a company deciding that, not the developers of ZBrush.
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