Licensing.

Here you'll find information on our different licensing options, links to help, tools and other resources

Changes to Foundry Licensing

We're updating our licensing to offer a better user experience and provide more control over the licenses you own. 

The new ‘Login-Based Licensing' model is completely optional and retains the flexibility of our existing licensing, with the added benefits of accessing and managing your licence entitlement from the cloud. Customers who switch to the new model can access their licence anywhere and can easily switch from working from the office or working from home, or even roam for 30 days.

If you are not ready to make the switch, no problem. Our existing licensing models are not changing and no changes are required. 

License types

Nodelocked
  • Locked to a specific machine
  • Does not require a license server
  • Can be used whether the machine is offline or online, it is not tied to any network
  • Moving to another machine requires submitting a license transfer form and deleting the old license file
Floating
  • Locked to a specific machine that acts as a license server to enable any machine on the network to run the application
  • Requires installing and running license server software on the server machine
  • Machines have to be on the same network/VPN as the license server
  • Moving to another server machine requires submitting a license transfer form and deleting the old license file
Individual Login
  • License tied to a single foundry.com account
  • Can activate on up to two machines at the same time
  • No need for license transfers - users can deactivate from one machine if they want to use the license on a different machine
  • Requires internet connection for initial activation and refreshing of licenses (max 37 days offline)
Team Login
  • Licenses tied to a team in the licensing system, users within that team have access to the pool of licenses
  • Floating license behaviour, licenses are freed up when users close applications
  • Admin user controls all users and licenses for the team
  • Requires internet connection throughout application use (or can check out a license for max 30 days offline use)

Login Licensing Compatible Applications

  • Individual Login Licensing
  • Modo 15.0
  • Nuke 14.0
  • NukeX 14.0
  • Nuke Studio 14.0
  • Nuke Indie
  • Hiero 14.0
  • HieroPlayer 14.0
  • Mari 7.0
  • Team Login Licensing
  • Nuke 14.0
  • NukeX 14.0
  • Nuke Studio 14.0
  • Nuke Render 14.0
  • Hiero 14.0
  • HieroPlayer 14.0
  • Mari 7.0
  • Modo 17.0v1 (Windows only, the Modo team are working hard to add support on macOS for 17.0v2)

Login licensing benefits

Time Saved
  • No need to find a system ID, install license files or setup and maintain a licence server (for floating licenses).
  • No need to reinstall license keys at renewal each year
Better Control
  • Individual users, groups and access permissions are easier to control using the admin dashboard
  • You can reserve licenses for specific users or create groups of users and license pools to control who has access to your different licenses
Easier Remote Access
  • Any authorized user with an internet connection can access their license
  • No need to maintain VPN access to your license server's network for remote users

How login licensing works

Individual Login Licensing

  • Create
    1. Create your Foundry account
  • Purchase
    2. Purchase license
  • Download
    3. Download software
  • Login
    4. Login to application with Foundry account

Team Login Licensing

  • Create
    1. Create Foundry Account for Admin user
  • Purchase
    2. Purchase license(s)
  • Invite
    3. Invite your users, they can create Foundry account as part of team invitation flow
  • Download
    4. Download software
  • Users
    5. Users login to applications with their Foundry account

Ready to make the switch?

If you are ready to make the switch and move to login based licences, you can get started by using the Migration Request Form.

For Team Login Licences, once the licences have been migrated, you can invite your users to use your pool of licences using the web dashboard.  You can bulk import all your users to make the process even easier.  Your users will receive an email to validate their email address and create a Foundry.com account if they don’t already have one.

Request license migration

Tools, support and help with licensing

Support

The License Help section of the Support Portal contains lots of useful information about licensing and what to do if you encounter a problem. If you cannot find the information you are looking for then please raise a support ticket through the Support Portal to contact the Support team.

Licensing Tools - Foundry Licensing Utility

The Licensing Tools page contains instructions and download links for the Foundry Licensing Utility (FLU). The Foundry Licensing Utility is used to:

  • Obtain your System ID
  • Install and view licenses
  • Install server tools
  • Help troubleshoot licensing problems

Licensing concepts and terminology

What is a Maintenance Plan?

Foundry’s Maintenance Plan gives you exclusive access to both technical support and beta programs, where your voice helps to shape the future of our products.

Whilst your maintenance plan is active, you can run the latest major and minor releases of the application to get access to new features and bug fixes.

The Maintenance Plan is subject to renewal, typically on an annual basis.

What is a Permanent License?

When you purchase a permanent license, you are able to run any versions of the application that are released before the end date of your maintenance contract - this is the “maintenance date”. In practice, the maintenance date is the version limit of the license.

Permanent licenses do not expire, you will always be able to run versions of the application that were released before the maintenance date of the license. If you do not renew your maintenance then you won’t be able to run versions released after the maintenance date.

Your first purchase of a permanent license comes with a maintenance plan, typically of 1 year.

As an example, when purchasing a permanent license on 1st July 2019 we would issue a permanent license with a maintenance date of 1st July 2020. The license will show this maintenance date as 2020.0701. With this license you can forever run any versions of the application that were released before 1st July 2020.

What is a Rental License?

With a rental license you can use the application for the duration of the rental period, typically 1, 2 or 3 quarters of a year. When the rental period is over the license expires and you can no longer use the application.

A rental license includes a maintenance plan for the duration of the rental.

As an example, when purchasing a rental license for 2 quarters starting on 1st July 2019 we would issue a license that expires on 1st January 2020. With this license you can run any version of the application that has a release date lower than 1st January 2020. After 1st January 2020 the application will not be licensed.

SystemID

A System ID uniquely identifies a machine. When a license is created it is locked to the System ID and the license can only be installed on that machine. For most license purchases we require a System ID.

You do not need to provide the System ID for log-in licenses.

For more information click here.

Activation Keys

An activation key is a short line of characters which is used to generate a license after purchase. They are provided for node-locked, floating licenses and login licenses. They can be activated using the application's Licensing dialog or online using the Activate a Product page here.

Login FAQ

Terms and Conditions

Will login-based licensing be available for all Foundry products? When?

We are rolling out login-based licensing one-by-one to all Foundry products. Nuke, Modo and Mari are currently available, and Katana and Flix will be added in future. Please look out for future announcements about our remaining products.

What product versions are available with login-based licensing?

  • Login-based licensing can be used with:
    • Nuke / NukeX / Nuke Studio and Nuke Render from 14.0v1
    • Hiero from 14.0v1
    • Hiero Player from 14.0v1
    • Modo from 15.0 for Individual Login licenses, Modo 17.0v1 for Team Login Licenses on Windows only (Teams licensing is not supported on Modo 17.0v1 for users on a) macOS, and b) users who use Power Translators and Power SubD-Nurbs plugins. The Modo team is working hard to add support for these use cases in Modo 17.0v2.)
    • Mari 7.0

Does login-based licensing change our perpetual license rights?

Your perpetual license rights are unchanged by migrating to login-based licensing.

Migration Process

Is it possible to migrate some of our licenses to login-based but leave others on their current offline model?

For simplicity of future license management, we ask customers to migrate all interactive licenses of a particular product (e.g. all Nuke / NukeX / Nuke Studio, Hiero and HieroPlayer) to login-based at once, rather than operate a mixed estate. Migrating render licenses is optional. If you have particular reasons you need to operate a mixed model please contact your sales representative.

Is this a one-way migration or can I switch back to offline licensing if I have issues?

You are permitted to switch back to offline licensing if you experience issues or your circumstances change meaning offline licensing is more suitable.

Is it possible to trial the new licensing system before migrating?

It may be possible for some customers to trial before migrating. Please contact your sales representative to discuss your needs.

Authentication

Can I access login-based licensing in all geographic locations?

Yes, it should be possible to access login-based licensing globally. However use of your products outside your home country is still governed by the same rules described in our End User Licensing Agreement.

Can I install and run the product on multiple devices?

Yes. Individual licenses can be activated on up to two machines at a time.  Team users can sign in and use licenses on multiple machines, up to the maximum number of concurrent licenses that team owns.

Does every user have to have a foundry.com account? What does this entail?

Yes, every user will need to create a foundry.com account. This should take less than 5 minutes and simply requires the user to provide and authenticate a chosen email address.

Administration

I'm the system administrator but do not use the software. Will I need to purchase a user license to continue to administrate?

No, the administrator simply needs a foundry.com account, which is free to obtain.

What is the difference between an Individual and a Team?

An individual is a single foundry.com account user.  Individual licenses are only accessible and usable by a single account.
A Team is a representation of a company within the login licensing system.  Team licenses are usable by any user within the team.

Can admins group users into custom groups to control access to different licenses e.g. across different sites or departments?

 

Yes, admins can use the Team Admin dashboard to create groups of different users and assign licenses to different groups.
Information on how to use the Team Admin dashboard is available in the Licensing Online Help and on the Support Portal.

More questions?

Not ready or have more questions? That’s fine, the new licensing model is optional and you can request to migrate your license at any time, or simply continue as you are.  Below you will find the answer to some common questions. For our full Q&A, please click here