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Autodesk is discontinuing Mudbox<\/a>, its digital sculpting software, previously used in concept art, game development, visual effects and motion graphics.<\/p>\n Sales and renewals of three-year subscriptions ended on 7 August 2026, with sales and renewals of monthly and annual subscriptions due to follow on 7 November 2026.<\/p>\n The change will bring to an end the 20-year history of a tool that was, in its heyday, used by international VFX studios like W\u0113t\u0101 FX, and won its creators technical Oscars.<\/p>\n So what was Mudbox \u2013 and how is it related to W\u0113t\u0101 FX?<\/strong> The software was used in production on 2005\u2019s King Kong, with Weta artists Andrew Camenisch, Dave Cardwell and Tibor Madjar leaving the studio the following year to develop it as a product.<\/p>\n The trio were recognised for their work<\/a> at the 2014 Scientific and Technical Academy Awards.<\/p>\n Their Academy citation singled out Mudbox\u2019s \u201cpowerful new design capabilities that significantly advance the state of the art in multi-resolution digital sculpting\u201d.<\/p>\n Other Weta in-house tools to become off-the-shelf products include crowd simulation system Massive<\/a> and 3D texturing painting software Mari<\/a>, the latter now owned by Foundry.<\/p>\n How did Autodesk develop Mudbox?<\/strong> The software continued to receive regular updates for a decade following the acquisition, but by the mid-2010s, the pace of development had slowed to a crawl.<\/p>\n Although Autodesk \u201cdecided to reinvest<\/a>\u201d in Mudbox in 2017, leading to the introduction of a major new dynamic tessellation system in Mudbox 2018.2<\/a>, it proved to be a blip.<\/p>\n While the firm continued to update Mudbox to run on current operating systems, no major new features were added.<\/p>\n When Mudbox 2027<\/a> was released this March, it was the sixth consecutive annual update<\/a> with no new features listed in the release notes.<\/p>\n A fan-made recreation of Disney\u2019s Princess Merida, sculpted by character artist Xhon Hysenaj<\/a>, and used as the final promo image on Autodesk\u2019s Mudbox website.<\/em><\/p>\n Why did people continue to use Mudbox for so long, if it didn\u2019t get any new features?<\/strong> Like the firm\u2019s other products, Mudbox is subscription-only, and while monthly subscriptions remained fixed, the price of annual subscriptions rose several times during those six years.<\/p>\n Although $105\/year isn\u2019t expensive by Autodesk standards, it still meant that artists were paying simply to continue using the software, not to get any new functionality.<\/p>\n That many were willing to do so is a testament to just how much people liked Mudbox.<\/p>\n Although there were powerful alternative digital sculpting tools, even at the time of its release, the main alternatives \u2013 ZBrush<\/a> and 3DCoat<\/a> \u2013 both have non-standard interfaces and workflows.<\/p>\n What people liked about Mudbox, right from the original beta<\/a>, was its intuitive layer-based workflow \u2013 if you were coming from other CG software, it just felt familiar.<\/p>\n When will sales of Mudbox end?<\/strong> Sales and renewals of three-year subscriptions ended on 7 August 2026, with sales and renewals of monthly and annual subscriptions due to follow on 7 November 2026.<\/p>\n Mudbox remains part of Autodesk\u2019s Media & Entertainment Collection<\/a> product bundle, but the current 2027 edition will be the last to include the software.<\/p>\n Anyone who had a subscription \u2013 to Mudbox itself, or to the Collection \u2013 on 7 August 2026 will get a five-year subscription to Mudbox 2027, to \u201csupport this transition\u201d.<\/p>\n The free subscription includes access to technical support and security fixes, but only for the first three of the five years; and will not include any new features or bugfixes. <\/p>\n Why has Autodesk discontinued Mudbox?<\/strong> It\u2019s almost as if, if you don\u2019t continue to actively develop a product, but expect people to continue paying to use it, they eventually become unwilling to do so \u2013 even if it does take years.<\/p>\n Read Autodesk\u2019s announcement that it is discontinuing Mudbox<\/a><\/p>\n Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a> and X (formerly Twitter)<\/a>. As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don\u2019t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
First released two decades ago, Mudbox<\/a> was one of a wave of CG art tools to come out of legendary visual effects facility W\u0113t\u0101 FX, then still known as Weta Digital.<\/p>\n
Mudbox was quickly acquired by Autodesk, which bought Skymatter<\/a>, its original developer, in 2007.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cgchannel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/250328_Mudbox2026_main.jpg\")
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In many ways, the surprising thing is not that Autodesk is now discontinuing Mudbox, but that it didn\u2019t do so sooner.<\/p>\n
Autodesk is now finally ending sales of Mudbox.<\/p>\n
Autodesk\u2019s reasons for discontinuing Mudbox are interesting: according to the online FAQs<\/a>, it\u2019s due to there having been \u201cno significant feature enhancements since Mudbox 2019\u201d.<\/p>\n