Left Angle closes: Autograph goes off sale, staff join Maxon
Left Angle, developer of motion design tool Autograph, has shut down. The Left Angle website is offline, and Autograph is no longer available on resellers’ websites.
Left Angle’s staff have now joined Maxon, developer of Cinema 4D and the Red Giant plugins.
The company’s license servers also went offline with the company’s closure, leaving Autograph users unable to launch the software, but as of last Friday, a workaround is available.
An attempt to create an alternative to After Effects for motion graphics work
Left Angle released its flagship product, Autograph, early in 2023, pitching it as a next-gen tool for motion design and VFX.
Many artists saw it as a potential alternative to Adobe’s After Effects, with which it shared a layer-based compositing workflow, although it combined it with a more Fusion-like 3D mode.
3D workflow was based around Universal Scene Description, and the software had its own integrated real-time physically based renderer, Filament.
The software had regular updates over the past two years, the final one, Autograph 2025, coming with a substantial price cut.
Left Angle shut down, and Autograph removed from sale
That seems not to have been enough to lift sales to a point that secured Left Angle’s financial future, and the company has now shut down “in its entirety”.
An email sent to subscribers earlier on 5 June read:
“Left Angle, the maker of Autograph, was created with a bold vision: to rethink compositing from the ground up and build a modern toolset for motion designers and visual effects artists.
“We’ve been incredibly proud of what we accomplished — and deeply grateful to the artists, studios, and partners who joined us on that journey.
“As of today, our business is winding down in its entirety and our team is beginning a new chapter. With this transition, our website and all related channels will go offline.
“While this chapter is ending, we’re hopeful about what’s ahead and what we can create. We’re working on a path forward and expect to share more in the future. Thank you for your support!”
The Left Angle website is now offline, and Autograph itself is no longer available on the website of RE:Vision Effects, which also distributed the software.
Left Angle staff join fellow motion graphics tools developer Maxon
The Left Angle staff have now joined Maxon, with Maxon commenting that “we look forward to combining their innovative approach to technology with Maxon’s creative ecosystem to build something new together”.
“This collaboration opens the door to fresh ideas and forward-thinking development that will better serve artists and creators around the world.”
The development is an interesting one, since Maxon – as a developer of tools widely used in motion graphics, like Cinema 4D – seems like a natural fit for the Left Angle team.
However, Maxon has historically had a close relationship with Adobe: the Lite version of Cinema 4D is bundled with After Effects, and After Effects is the primary host application for its Red Giant effects plugins, also widely used for motion graphics work.
Workaround now available for Autograph users unable to active their software online
The news came as a particular blow for existing users, since with the closure of Left Angle, its license servers, also used to authenticate the software on startup, went offline.
Cine Linux, whose associate production company uses an Autograph-based pipeline, has a good story on the impact this becoming simply unable to use your software had on users, and the way that the situation was initially handled by Left Angle and Maxon.
However, on Friday, Left Angle founders Alexandre Gauthier-Foichat and François Grassard posted an update on the Autograph subreddit, commenting:
“It has been killing us that your service was interrupted when our license servers went down during the closing of our business.
“Maxon did not shut down our license server and discontinue the software – they stepped into a difficult situation to help preserve a future for us.”
Instructions for artists affected have now been posted on the RE:Vision Effects website, with Autograph users able to email RE:Vision Effects to receive a file to unlock offline activation for their software, removing the need to log in online during startup.
Gauthier-Foichat and Grassard also commented that they are “beginning … to shape a plan to incorporate our technology into the Maxon ecosystem”, although there are no details yet.
Read Maxon’s announcement that the Left Angle team is joining Maxon
Find details of offline activation for Autograph users affected by Left Angle’s closure
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