Toonz 5 - Harlequin

[Toontoonz]

What are the prices for all those versions of the programs you listed?
Maya Complete and Softimage Essentials. Maya PLE and XSI Foundation.


A lot of people have to budget themselves just coming up with the $99 for Moho...


I own Maya 6.5 Unlimited. From what I saw of Harlequin, Maya it is a much better deal than $8500-$9500 for Toonz5 Harlequin - for the individual, independent animator, anyway.

Toonz5 Harlequin is aimed at bigger sized production houses that buy multiple licenses of the software. According to their website they say the following: "The list of professional companies currently using Toonz is enormous, as the installed Toonz base is well over 2,200 seats."

[The400th]

Maya Complete - $1999
Maya PLE - Free

XSI Essentials - $1995
XSI Foundation - $495

Harlequin's pricing is too high, but that will have to change very quickly, or they won't sell it.

And they might have sold 2,200 seats in total, but not all those 2,200 are still in use (two words: competitive upgrades).

[Toontoonz]

A caveat with Maya PLE and it´s amazing FREE price as noted in the post above - it is the free, DEMO version: Personal Learning Edition. One can only use the files within PLE and they are watermarked. And it is not the Unlimited edition of Maya.
From the Maya website:
Maya PLE: "Almost every feature found in the full commercial version of Maya Complete™7"
"The Maya Personal Learning Edition restricts users to non-commercial applications through the display of a watermark on images as well as through the use of a special non-commercial file format."

"Are Maya Unlimited features such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Cloth, Maya Live, Maya Hair or Maya Fur included in Maya Personal Learning Edition?
No. Maya Personal Learning Edition is based on Maya Complete; therefore, features that are part of Maya Unlimited are not included.

Is the graphics performance of Maya Personal Learning Edition as fast as the released version of Maya?
No. The commercial version of Maya is faster than Maya Personal Learning Edition."

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If one is going to start including free demo versions of software as a way to show competition between software companies and driving down the prices, well that won´t impress too many people, or will it?.

[The400th]

If one is going to start including free demo versions of software as a way to show competition between software companies and driving down the prices, well that won´t impress too many people, or will it?

It still makes it possible to explore the software and learn skills that can get you jobs. You can then "upgrade" to the full version later on when you want to take advantage of the pro features. And the point is it wouldn't exist if they didn't have competition from Softimage.

But I am stretching the argument a little with the PLE, I admit - so I'll just mention XSI Foundation again.

We're getting way off topic here, though (but it is very a very enjoyable discussion).