Using plugins in studio environment
polycounter lvl 10
I want to buy a couple of plugins for 3d Max and I was wondering if it is a common practice in most studios to let people use their own plugins in the 3d package that studio licenses? Quad chamfer for example.
Replies
as long as you can still fit your art into the pipeline it should be fine
This has been brought up in the Paintstorm thread - I personally have never encountered *any* software with a license allowing for both "home and studio" use. Some do allow for multiple installs on different machines, but that's not the same thing as multiple licenses ...
Also, another reason for simply asking your lead about it is that if you don't do things by the rules and the studio gets audited, the studio could be in trouble. Now of course a tiny plugin would likely slip between the cracks, but that's not an excuse to not do things properly...
Last but not least, your team might have a spending budget to meet in order for said budget to be approved for the next year, therefore buying some copies of a useful plugin might actually be a good thing for everybody.
IPackThat, Marmoset Toolbag, Pro version of Substance Deisgner/Painter?
And to get back to the question. I'm more or less able to install anything on my machine as long as it's not pirated. It's actually pretty nice as some people will find a plug-in or software that really improves a certain workflow and before you know it licenses are purchased for people.
To me that means that a person with a license can *run* the program easily on any computer (which is very handy when it comes to showing a quick demo to anyone interested), but that does not mean that buying the program/license once allows anyone to use it both at home (for, say, freelance work, or even just personal portfolio art) and at a studio working on other projects. I would think that anyone doing so is basically abusing the flexibility of the system.
On Substance :
To me that's the same thing here ... I wouldn't consider "John Smith working on his own stuff or contracts at home" to be the same "user" as "John Smith working at studio X on a given game project".
Another way to look at the issue would be to imagine the reverse scenario : I wouldn't expect to be able (or more precisely, legally allowed) to use a piece of software from work on personal projects at home.
But then again, the only safe thing to do is to always ask the IT and purchasing departments.
That being said, it would be very foolish for anyone running the purchasing department of a studio to refuse the purchase of a $40 plugin, therefore you don't have much to worry about really
I just wouldn't expect to be allowed to, say, use my own license of MayaLT or Modo (that I can use at home, on personal projects as well as contract work) at a studio that I am a fulltime employee of.
Now of course I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this - it's just that at all the places I worked at it in the past it was clearly not possible/allowed, for multiple reasons. Legal reasons first and foremost, but also as mentionned above for the sake of budgeting.
I actually witnessed the case of people using the multiple installs allowance to, indeed, install a given program that they originally purchased for themselves on their workplace computer ... only to be told later on to stop doing that. It sucks, but it happens.
One simple reason for that : Let's imagine that someone "brings over" one's own license of a given package, ultimately establishing a very solid pipeline saving a lot of time. If this program has been installed behind the back of IT and purchasing, then this expense just isn't in the books. This can cause major issues when the next year comes around, since all of a sudden the budget attributed to an artist workstation + the relevant software licenses doesn't match the reality of the project anymore.
in a small/indie studio obviously anything goes.
i've seen past employers of mine bend over backwards to e.g. buy somebody a seat of modo (the only one in a 300 person studio) or softimage when the teams and internal pipelines generally required max or maya.
i would advise against getting too reliant on plugins or closed source utilities and scripts in general though. they might just vanish one day or stop being compiled for the host application and suddenly you'd have a problem on your hands.
I don't think it's possible for me though. Most apps have very lacklustre features but it's fixed by community.
I actually contacted The Foundry customer support and specifically asked if I could use it both at home and at work. They basically said yes, as long as I am the only one using the license and told me to make sure to uninstall if I ever left the company.
In any other cases, it shouldnt be any problem unless the studio have a different code.
Remember that the studio make the game, not you
... and then of course there's Blender
They will want to check the tool to make sure it doesn't have anything suspicious in it as well as to make sure it wont break any proprietary tools your studio has.
Like one of my old coworkers really has no control over what apps and plugins he gets access too. Where in my situation I'm aloud to use any tool i want as long as my work that goes into version control is compatiable with Maya in the end.
I'm pretty sure a company that knows what they're doing would pay for a plugin if the amount of time saved by using the plugin is greater than the amount it costs for the plugin. Production = Time, Time = Money. Software is probably the least expensive cost for most things when you add it all up (well, maybe coffee..)
Probably the only time they might not buy it if it's either ridiculously expensive for what it does, already have a better solution than what the plugin offers in their pipeline, or is something that is so damned specific that it really would only be used one time. Just my 2 cents anyways / haven't actually worked at a large studio yet.
Hell I'd just buy another copy of quad chamfer myself if a company wouldn't pay for it.