Without an Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) agreement the London-based company will no longer have access to crucial technical information about Autodesk's compositing products.
As a result, the Foundry believes it can no longer provide support to its customers and is therefore making current plug-ins available at a reduced price, in some cases for as much as 80%.
The Foundry is now selling the Furnace plug-in range, for example, at £650 plus VAT compared to £3,650 previously.
Autodesk dropped The Foundry from the programme because the latter now develops its own compositing product, Nuke.
The Foundry chief executive Bill Collis said: 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.”
A statement from Autodesk read: “Autodesk undertook this decision for business reasons - namely that The Foundry now develops and sells Nuke. Autodesk views Nuke as competing with Autodesk Toxik.”
The decision does not ban the Foundry from making or selling plug-ins for Autodesk systems products and, according to the Montreal-based manufacturer, a solution is being sought that works for both parties.
Customers have been informed that The Foundry cannot guarantee to make any new builds after 1 January 2009 and that bug fixing or upgrades to future versions of Autodesk systems may not be possible.
The Foundry has been making plug-ins for Autodesk products for 12 years and was the first such developer on Discreet Logic's Flame system.
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