London, UK. January 1st 2009 — The Foundry, a leading developer of visual effects, image-processing and compositing software, announced today that effective immediately, it has significantly reduced prices on plug-ins for Autodesk® advanced systems, as it is no longer part of the Autodesk Authorised Developer Network programme and can no longer guarantee continued development or support. The decision follows notification by Autodesk that it will not renew its development licence with The Foundry, citing competitive issues. The decision ends Autodesk’s twelve-year development relationship with The Foundry and its users.
Autodesk has provided a non-binding, verbal assurance to The Foundry that may be sufficient to enable The Foundry to continue supporting Autodesk plug-in products (Sparks). Due to the uncertain nature of this assurance, The Foundry can only guarantee ‘best effort’ support to its Autodesk plug-in customers at this time. The Foundry is also unable to predict whether it will be able to develop or support future releases on Autodesk systems platforms.
The Foundry, formed in 1996, was the first developer of Sparks on Discreet Logic’s® Flame® systems and has continued to bring its Academy Award®-winning technology to digital artists worldwide through a variety of highly regarded and popular plug-in products including Tinder, Furnace and Keylight.
Simon Robinson, The Foundry’s chief scientist and co-founder, said: “The Foundry was originally established to develop Tinder on Discreet Logic® so it is particularly sad that this relationship is altering so significantly. We’d like to thank our loyal Autodesk customers who helped us build The Foundry into the successful company it is today.”
The Foundry’s CEO, Bill Collis, aded: “Our customers always come first and we will, of course, continue to support them to the best of our ability. However, without a legal agreement in place, we cannot guarantee how long we will be able to continue to provide this service. Many of our Autodesk customers are key industry players who have strongly influenced our development path and we are committed to keeping them informed about any changes in service or development.”
REDUCED PRICING ON NODE LOCKED AUTODESK® PLUG-INS – effective 1st January 2009
Furnace GUI = $1000 / £650 + VAT
Tinder GUI = $1000 / £650 + VAT
Keylight GUI = $500 / £325 + VAT
FREE BURN LICENSES
For more information on Autodesk plug-ins, please visit www.thefoundry.co.uk, where you’ll also find examples and client testimonials.
Notes to Customers: The Foundry cannot guarantee to make any new builds after 1st January 2009. Bug fixing or upgrades to future versions of Autodesk systems may not be possible.
About The Foundry: The Foundry is a world-leading innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity in motion picture and video post production. On February 10th 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award® to The Foundry’s development team for the Furnace image processing suite. The company now holds two products with Academy Award® winning technology including high-end compositing system Nuke.
The Foundry’s products support a wide range of host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk® Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Baselight, Film Master, NUKE, Scratch, Shake and Final Cut Pro. The company has also driven OpenFX, an open standard for visual effects plug-ins, now broadly adopted by host and plug-in developers such as Autodesk, Assimilate, FilmLight, Digital Vision, eyeon Software Inc, Grass Valley, Soluciones Graficas por Ordenador (S.G.O.), Photron and others.
Customers include : Digital Domain, The Moving Picture Company, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Warner Bros and Weta Digital Ltd.
The Foundry is headquartered in London, and has offices in Los Angeles. For more information please visit The Foundry’s website at www.thefoundry.co.uk, or call +44 20 7434 0449.
© The Foundry, its logo and product names are registered trademarks in the UK, USA and and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.