Allegorithmic is joining the Adobe family (part 1)

[michael_11]

To Sébastien Deguy I hope you one day become the CEO of Adobe maybe then you would be in a position to make things right.

+1

https://allegorithmic.uservoice.com/forums/270787-support-to-customers/suggestions/36619075-sebastian-deguy-should-become-ceo-of-adobe-and-mak

[theo.hallenius]

If you guys truly believe you and Adobe are the right fit - go ahead and try to convince Adobe to implement rent-to-own business model that worked so great for you so far for their line of products. Maybe then I will still have some hope for this product and Adobe in general. Otherwise they will just consume you with their own business model, which is "rent and never get to own".

[brucegawthorne]

@mvijfwinkel Valid question and it will be answered in the near future in more precise terms than it was in this general announcement of the acquisition. Until then you just have to take our word for it I guess.

That is kind of the problem though isn’t it, you are not giving any information except “for now, but we will be discussing things later” and “trust us”. What was the point of sending out an email to everyone with a link it in it to the forums for if anyone had any questions? What questions were you expecting to be asked that you actually had answers to? Can you give us the information to those questions you were expecting?

You must of known for sure that the major questions were going to be along the lines of what’s happening with pricing? Is it going to be part of CC? etc, etc and for the the the responses of “for now, but we will be making changes and discussing in coming months” and “trust us” are about the weakest answers imaginable and just shows so little forethought was put into providing any answers, so why bother even prompting people to ask? All you have done is just created more distrust between your users and what is going on. Which is coincidentally pretty much how Adobe operate, so guess it is a match made in heaven. I see a lot of the Allegorithmic employees on social media getting very shocked at the responses...have any of you spent anytime on Internet in the past 5 years and heard the hate there is for Adobe or were you that oblivious and just expecting that your users were just going to say “Hey, wow, that is so cool”?, because you say “trust us”, so didn’t bother preparing any information that users might actually want to know.

Look I for one will just be waiting until my two more months is up to be able to purchase a perpetual license (praying that options doesn’t get removed in the mean time, because again no information on timing of anything is forth coming) and then will be gone. Will use your software to tide me over until I work out something else I have in mind. The reason I am leaving is because I got caught up in the credit card security breach that Adobe had a few years ago and won’t have anything to do with them because of the secrecy and dishonesty they had in notify those of us who were compromised, so all trust is gone with them. I found other solutions that I have ultimately found much better than what Adobe provide, Substance is just another piece of software that can be replaced as well.

[TooManyDemons]

Blender's layer-based material authoring work looks very promising so far! Dayum. I'm going to invest. It will be something no one can ever buy right out from under me and change the rules.

I really loved Substance, but in light of new events I can't trust it to be reliable (yet). Once everything settles down and the smoke clears I'll have a second look, maybe later in the year.

I've already been busy reworking my workflows and am discovering I can actually do a lot of very comparable things in near-equal quality and speed,  with Zbrush and 3D Coat. There are also tools to bake procedural textures from the node editor in Blender:

https://www.blendermarket.com/products/pbr-texture-bakery-for-cycles

which is only one of many other tools that peeps are working on.

I think the indie community will be just fine, and will find clever ways to circumvent Adobe and prosper. It will be rocky, for sure. But to have a piece of software that does a nice texture job and can't be bought... just imagine that. Blender 2.8 already looks phenomenal...

Ton Roosendaal is Neo. He's going to save us all 

[IrradianceCache]

I'm actually shocked at some of the earlier comments in this thread.....Those people should be ashamed.

I wish them the best of luck, and I, for one, will stay with them on their journey...

p.s. just please don't axe Substance Source

Go ahead and axe it, it's fine by me.

Oh Diddums...

[Barecore]

I hope these values were included in the acquisition contract as they are on your "About Us" part of your web page. Adobe doesn't uphold these qualities.

I find it hard to believe, under their thumb, you will be able to maintain these to the extent you would hope to.

I really hope everyone including myself is wrong. Adobe's level of innovation is a shiny new tool to make the amateur life easier not the professional artist. They try and automate everything into easy buttons. I find myself bound in photoshop at the mercy of their tools knowing what my end goal is; if the tool can't figure it out then I'm still doing touch ups and patches by hand.

I thought they were on the right track in 2014 with After Effects multi processing. Then SURPRISE the feature was removed not even available as an experimental option. It's been almost half a decade and I still see forum posts of people using AE 2014 because it processes so much faster. This is NOT innovation in any sense of the word.

I wanted to post after hearing the news. I took the day to digest the information and find some clarity or hope, but from everything I've read and the vagueness in replies to the cries of your users. I am also losing faith and looking for alternatives, in the fear that Allegorithmic and it's tools will be engulfed in Adobe's shadow, left to rot in the history of wikipedia.

Again Please prove me wrong give us some shred of official proof that the substance software packages (even if on CC) will remain independent software packages and not just rolled into the craptastic Dimension.

[Nicolas LIATTI]

@mvijfwinkel Valid question and it will be answered in the near future in more precise terms than it was in this general announcement of the acquisition. Until then you just have to take our word for it I guess.

That is kind of the problem though isn’t it, you are not giving any information except “for now, but we will be discussing things later” and “trust us”. What was the point of sending out an email to everyone with a link it in it to the forums for if anyone had any questions? What questions were you expecting to be asked that you actually had answers to? Can you give us the information to those questions you were expecting?

You must of known for sure that the major questions were going to be along the lines of what’s happening with pricing? Is it going to be part of CC? etc, etc and for the the the responses of “for now, but we will be making changes and discussing in coming months” and “trust us” are about the weakest answers imaginable and just shows so little forethought was put into providing any answers, so why bother even prompting people to ask? All you have done is just created more distrust between your users and what is going on. Which is coincidentally pretty much how Adobe operate, so guess it is a match made in heaven. I see a lot of the Allegorithmic employees on social media getting very shocked at the responses...have any of you spent anytime on Internet in the past 5 years and heard the hate there is for Adobe or were you that oblivious and just expecting that your users were just going to say “Hey, wow, that is so cool”?, because you say “trust us”, so didn’t bother preparing any information that users might actually want to know.

Look I for one will just be waiting until my two more months is up to be able to purchase a perpetual license (praying that options doesn’t get removed in the mean time, because again no information on timing of anything is forth coming) and then will be gone. Will use your software to tide me over until I work out something else I have in mind. The reason I am leaving is because I got caught up in the credit card security breach that Adobe had a few years ago and won’t have anything to do with them because of the secrecy and dishonesty they had in notify those of us who were compromised, so all trust is gone with them. I found other solutions that I have ultimately found much better than what Adobe provide, Substance is just another piece of software that can be replaced as well.

Hi,

We are answering the questions
Do we have a plan/project? Yes, and that's why we are choosing to go with Adobe.
Can we share that plan? Not yet, because it's simply not ready to be shared.
Why did you communicate about it? Because we had to, for legal reasons and also be fair with our customers.
What's gonna happen with prices? Nothing is happening. And when something happens, we will let you know, as we did in the past.
Can we commit 100% that nothing will change? No. And we could never for it in the past neither. Adobe doesn't change anything.

I hope it helps

[kevin.frey]

Time to learn Mari.

Can't afford $2000 for that. Yikes.

And what? We pay for a software not becouse we can not pirate it down in 10 sec, we pay for it becouse we wanna support it's developmant, becouse we TRUST in their development team, becouse we TRUST  in their leadership, becouse WE TRUST IN THEIR DECISIONS.
The relationship between a software company and thie community is the most important factor of their business imo.

I have friends that has huge software parks and they pay the most as donation to Blender : thats how it works.

Not sure what you're driving at. I've paid about $500 for two years of Substance, $250 at a time. I can't afford a $2000 payment for a license of Mari no matter how long it lasts.

I don't pirate software. I support development, but $2000 is too expensive for me.

You won't be paying $250 anymore, you fool. There's a damn clear reason why all 6 mentions of licensing this past day had "For now" "currently" "planned" etc tagged on. It's heading to the Creative Cloud, where you will be paying $21 each for Designer and Painter. So hello $500 a year, or you'll be paying $53 a month for the Creative Cloud Suite, so $636 a year. And these licenses are NOT perpetual like the $250 you mentioned paying. You stop, you lose the software. Period.

In 3 years you've reached the $2000 price tag of Mari, which you'd own forever with that purchase, and the price will just keep adding up and up. In 6 years you're $4000 in and still own nothing, cancel and no more Substance for you.

Also note that $2000 is only the initial purchase, it's less than $500 a year to renew the maintenance if you so choose to want the new features, which is already going to be the price of the Creative Cloud Substance Suite, so anyone with a budget is better off eating the upfront cost of Mari and own the software forever while having the option to renew a year of updates for the same price Substance will cost.

I think you're not understanding me. I totally agree with what you're saying. I made all the same arguments when Adobe went rental.

My only point is I do not have $2000 right now for a Mari license.

I am a programmer by day and 3D tinkerer at night so expenses like this are too high for my hobby.

[Sagem]

I'm actually shocked at some of the earlier comments in this thread, particularly the ones advocating the deaths of Allegorithmic staff. Pretty sickening really. Those people should be ashamed.

I've read every page and didn't see any death threats. Were they removed?

One of the team mentioned it somewhere that they had received death threats. I know a lot of people are upset but that's really messed up and the Allegorithmic team don't deserve that. As much as we might not like their decision, I do believe they are genuinely doing what they believe is best to take the development of their products forward, and past the anger I think we should at least wish them some success going forward.

Which reminds me...this thread (and I how I felt getting the email) reminds me of the 7 stages of grief (a version of):
1.Shock & Denial (reacting with numbed disbelief and perhaps denial)
2. Pain  (mostly pain it seems from the reactions, lets hope it's temporary)
3. Anger
4. Depression, Reflection
5. The upward turn (the depression begins to subside)
6. Reconstruction and working through  (seeking solutions to the problem)
6. Acceptance & Hope (eventually accepting the reality and finding a positive way forward)

 

[Michael_12K]

This thread



We're all for listening to feedback and discussing with you but for the love of the holy spaghetti monster, please stop predicting a future we know much more about than you do.

All will be cleared up in due time and your fears will be defused.

firts off, wow, in the light of current events you really got some balls posting those condescending images and words earlier in this thread, buddy
have you read this: https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-acquires-allegorithmic-substance-3d-gaming/   ??

As soon as I learned about Adobe acquiring Allegorithmic I cancelled my sub and switched to perpetual.
I would have let the sub run indefinitely just to support you guys. Now I will stick with the last perpetual release of SP and SD just like I do with my CS 6 Master Collection. If Adobe will turn off the license servers I'll use antiidiotics. It was fun while it lasted. Now Adobe and its goons can go .... themselves. You traitors need Jesus!

speaking of which, I am somewhat glad I didn't sell my 3D Coat license.

au revoir

[kevin.frey]

That will not happen, we're not savages

Absolutely love that response. Thank you!

[Caulder]

@mvijfwinkel Valid question and it will be answered in the near future in more precise terms than it was in this general announcement of the acquisition. Until then you just have to take our word for it I guess.

That is kind of the problem though isn’t it, you are not giving any information except “for now, but we will be discussing things later” and “trust us”. What was the point of sending out an email to everyone with a link it in it to the forums for if anyone had any questions? What questions were you expecting to be asked that you actually had answers to? Can you give us the information to those questions you were expecting?

You must of known for sure that the major questions were going to be along the lines of what’s happening with pricing? Is it going to be part of CC? etc, etc and for the the the responses of “for now, but we will be making changes and discussing in coming months” and “trust us” are about the weakest answers imaginable and just shows so little forethought was put into providing any answers, so why bother even prompting people to ask? All you have done is just created more distrust between your users and what is going on. Which is coincidentally pretty much how Adobe operate, so guess it is a match made in heaven. I see a lot of the Allegorithmic employees on social media getting very shocked at the responses...have any of you spent anytime on Internet in the past 5 years and heard the hate there is for Adobe or were you that oblivious and just expecting that your users were just going to say “Hey, wow, that is so cool”?, because you say “trust us”, so didn’t bother preparing any information that users might actually want to know.

Look I for one will just be waiting until my two more months is up to be able to purchase a perpetual license (praying that options doesn’t get removed in the mean time, because again no information on timing of anything is forth coming) and then will be gone. Will use your software to tide me over until I work out something else I have in mind. The reason I am leaving is because I got caught up in the credit card security breach that Adobe had a few years ago and won’t have anything to do with them because of the secrecy and dishonesty they had in notify those of us who were compromised, so all trust is gone with them. I found other solutions that I have ultimately found much better than what Adobe provide, Substance is just another piece of software that can be replaced as well.

Hi,

We are answering the questions
Do we have a plan/project? Yes, and that's why we are choosing to go with Adobe.
Can we share that plan? Not yet, because it's simply not ready to be shared.
Why did you communicate about it? Because we had to, for legal reasons and also be fair with our customers.
What's gonna happen with prices? Nothing is happening. And when something happens, we will let you know, as we did in the past.
Can we commit 100% that nothing will change? No. And we could never for it in the past neither. Adobe doesn't change anything.

I hope it helps

I was wondering, when I think of a match with Allegorithmic that shares the same values that have been on your about us page for a long time, that has a similar passion and drive, my thoughts go to Epic.

Epic was not interested, not an option or not interesting enough?
I would have been out of this world with joy if that was the case and I think it's safe to say a lot of my peers would have felt the same.

Can you give us a few examples why Adobe was the one to go with, 'without a doubt'?

[ArtisanS]

Perpetualised my subscription and downloaded 576 materials I had saved up.....not in that order....now I have a splitting head ache.

Greets

[Fenes Octavian 0]

Perpetualised my subscription and downloaded 576 materials I had saved up.....not in that order....now I have a splitting head ache.

Greets

Gonna do the same next month as soon as I have 12. BTW, will it be possible to switch to Steam in my case?

[pws]

6. Acceptance & Hope (eventually accepting the reality and finding a positive way forward)

 

This is also known as Stockholm syndrome...

@ A-Team 

wish you all the best, from a financial / safety point of view, I can understand your action, you're young and need the money, I did the same around 2000 and sold my IP to a world market leader in a different business. (well, wasn't the best decision in my life, another story)

A merger like yours is about 9 months or so, time enough to be prepared for our reactions and give us clear and precise answers instead of marketing platitudes or vague oracles.

Things will cool down, you have made your decisions, so do we.

Stay aligned and fly safe!