interoperability

[glorybound]

It would be awesome to have plugins work in read only mode. If you want to edit or create, you have to pay to enable it, however, you don't need the plugin installed to read it.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

I don't think that is possible, because if we are talking about 3dsmax - plugins core should've been shipped included in max. Now imagine the amount of plugins !
Though for example iToo allows you to render Forestpack and Railclone without using a license if you have several PC's. Though you need at least one license anyway

[glorybound]

Then, maybe these plugins can be included in the core. It might cause bloat, but they would work and when the new version comes out all the plugins would be there, already installed. We could either use them in read mode, or license them.

[joconnell]

Max has a looooooooooooot of plugins. I don't want half the bollox people use in it, I'd rather keep everything slim and only relatively unstable compared to teetering on the brink if it had all the options, never mind the size of the download

[glorybound]

Max has a looooooooooooot of plugins. I don't want half the bollox people use in it, I'd rather keep everything slim and only relatively unstable compared to teetering on the brink if it had all the options, never mind the size of the download

Thats how I figured people felt, however, what about check boxes when installing?

[joconnell]

So you still have to download the 30gig 3dsmax installer so you've go the option of turning them off?

It's got a loooooooooot of plugins

[dlparisi]

Still sounds like a bad idea in general and not really fair to the plug-in developer. A lot of plugins will work in network rendering anyways. Yeah, I get that often I'll download a model or scene that has a missing plugin and it would be great to have it available as read only, but that's my problem not Autodesk's or the developer's. My point is that just having the plugin available as read only in a workstation UI does provide some value that developers should be compensated for.

A better solution would be either a database maintained by Autodesk (heaven forbid) that allows missing plugins to point to where they could be downloaded or purchased, or a marker in the file that points to the missing plugin on the web. Right now when a plugin is missing max pops up the dialog with the missing dll but it would be great if it could ask us to install the missing plugin, assuming it's free, or at least where to find it.

BTW-What does a read only version of V-Ray look like?

[Dave_Wortley]

Plugins like ForestPro and RailClone can exist in your scene even if you don't have a license or even have them installed, when you send them to render on a farm that again might not even have licenses, but has the plugin installed these plugins will render because they don't need a license installed for network rendering.

[glorybound]

My thought was due to sending MAX files around and them not having the plugin, and not wanting to purchase a license. Things like, Autograss and RichScene.

[Dave_Wortley]

Autodesk need to make a licensing app-store for their software and plugins so that we can spin things up easier for the cloud and expanding/contracting workstation numbers.

[glorybound]

Autodesk need to make a licensing app-store for their software and plugins so that we can spin things up easier for the cloud and expanding/contracting workstation numbers.

Yes, agreed! If they made upgrade more seemless, maybe people would upgrade more often. With subscription, it probably doesn't matter; you pay if you upgrade or not.