A Sad Day..... time to accelerate plans to switch to Blender?

[JezUK]

Of course, you just wait to see how much they ramp up the subscriptions in a year or two. Phase one is making the perpetual renewal more expensive so more people are tempted by the sub before the screws are tightened later on.

Oh, and miss the upgrade to 6 and you'll be paying full purchase price for version 7......that IMHO sucks......

Many of us have helped Chaos on this journey since version 1.5...... (heck, even one of my ideas was incorporated into V-Ray with me personally receiving acknowledgement/credit for it from Chaos).....

My money would be on Perpetual being fazed out eventually (by which time I'll stick with what I've got) but, man, that upgrade price sucks. I can't see the justification for that price jump (IMHO).

[glorybound]

It is business, I suppose. I mean, wouldn't we raise our rates if we could? Imagine charging a subscription for our images. What if we can send clients an invoice every month that they use the image we provide them. Unless you offer something special and unique, people will leave to save money. Blender seems to be where people are going, and Chaos can't compete with free.

[artur_lekszton]

My monies on perpetual licenses being fully killed on release of Vray 7. they'll allow existing users to go to 6 to placate complaints whilst they migrate the sheep over to rental.

they already refuted what their employee said 2 years ago, so i can see that happening.

especially now after merger.
"It wasn't us, it was them!"

I'll be considering my options now.

[Deflaminis]

I've come to the conclusion that I am poor. And now also sad.

[second-ich]

I'm also a bit shocked by the new pricing. And there is no discount for the 3-Year-Plan, even though I have bought the perpetual license for Vray Next and Vray 5.

For 3Ds Max there is at least an Indie version, that's something Chaos Group should also consider.

[bardo]

I'm not the defender lawyer of Chaos but, just to better compare che cost of subscriptions Vs perpetual, I think that we should consider that the version cycle of life is 2 years.
So, the cost of the subscription should be doubled.
Am I wrong?

[JezUK]

Am I wrong?

Yes you are

Seriously, I simply think the solution is to have a Indie subscription.

Why?

if you are a small one man freelancer, earning small amounts from 3D renders, you will be paying £285 for 3DS Max per annum.

Does it make sense to be paying more for the renderer / extension to the hosting software than the cost of the host application itself? (the host is and has always been traditionally the most expensive element).

Whereas if you are, say, a company, employing staff etc, with a reasonable turnover,, you will be paying the full subscription price for 3DS Max, which I think is around £1300 a year (I don’t know because I haven’t looked it up). For this category of customer/user, the V-Ray price seems reasonable and correct. It is ‘in-line’.

This has to make sense to Chaos.

in my position, I’m no longer upgrading my node licences, I will sell my ‘farm’, won’t upgrade Phoenix (can’t anyway),, and maybe won’t even upgrade vray to 6. Why? Chaos pricing no longer works for me.

And I’ll say it here….. never in a million years did I ever dream that one day, Chaos would become how Autodesk used to be with regards to pricing (even Autodesk no longer seem so bad as they offer Indie)….

Rant over!

[glorybound]

I once had a five-machine farm, and I pivoted once they started charging per node. I invested in one machine with many cores and a lot of RAM. I am working 100% on a laptop now, without any limits. I am not rendering 8K animations, but I am in a good place for my stills. V-Ray was complicated; I spent more time fighting the software than creating images, but that has changed. Now, with Cosmos, the assets more than pay for the solo subscription. So my point is, as long as they keep improving things, I'll be content.

[T0ofic]

Each and every user is different (and you're not an exception my friend..)

I think it's time to put words on a symptom.
Simply Vray CPU and GPU should be different products. different prices. Time has proven it's a different DNA at its root and more hardware sensible on the GPU side, sorry AMD

No? at least an option to buy old school Vray CPU and cut drastically the price. Even think about a small farm maybe 5 is a good number
scans, cosmos, clouds, .. good but I already have clients and I just want to render what do I do?
cheers!

[glorybound]

And I am just giving my opinion. I have been around since 2013 and have read the comments about every price increase; nobody is ever happy when the price goes up. If Chaos keeps improving the software, I'll continue to support it by upgrading each time. If they stop, then I'll weigh my options. People are jumping to Blender, and newbies are starting there. I can't tell you how often I get asked what software to begin with. So I say if I were starting, I would create with Blender.

[bardo]

Yes you are

Seriously, I simply think the solution is to have a Indie subscription.

...... (cut just for less scrolling)

Rant over!

Sorry, probably I was not clear with my English.
When I wrote "So, the cost of the subscription should be doubled." I mean that as perpetual still alive for 2 years (for around 750€), the subscription is around 415€ yearly, so comparing perpetual Vs subscription must be donw doubling the price of the subscription. Just this.

About an indie price, probably you're right and one solution shoud be found.

[artur_lekszton]

if you are a small one man freelancer, earning small amounts from 3D renders, you will be paying £285 for 3DS Max per annum.

Does it make sense to be paying more for the renderer / extension to the hosting software than the cost of the host application itself? (the host is and has always been traditionally the most expensive element).

Whereas if you are, say, a company, employing staff etc, with a reasonable turnover,, you will be paying the full subscription price for 3DS Max, which I think is around £1300 a year (I don’t know because I haven’t looked it up). For this category of customer/user, the V-Ray price seems reasonable and correct. It is ‘in-line’.

i do agree with this sentiment.

Main base application costing less than addon is plain silly.
Just like ZIVA - their INdie sub costs double the cost of maya indie.

still, we aren't where the money's at.
INdustry licensing is probably more than 90% of revenue.
its a sad day that Chaos sold off, will not be recommending them to anyone. if they wanted to go scorched earth, so be it.

[piotrus3333]

Did anybody complaining bothered with doing the math? annual V-Ray Premium seems just a bit more expensive than perpetual 1.5 with upgrade to 2.0 in 2010. how does perpetual V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max compares to what Premium’s value proposition is? and 12 years of inflation on top. V-Ray will pay for itself in a matter of days most of the time.
silly D5 is $360/year…

[T0ofic]

pointing others behavior as they jump off the cliff to justify questionable ethics will never bring salvation.
in 2010, buying Max (yes not renting it) and Vray (for his irradiancemap, RIP) coupled with one or three plugins (again no rent, just buy it...) would technically and legally grant you full production power in 2022.
think about this exact same situation in ten years.. I have a special feeling about this..
anyway I miss doing 8000pix in less than 3 hours in full production mode (don't talk about denoise and GPU, please be polite)
and for your information using Vray in 2010 was cool, now a little bit less

[piotrus3333]

true, I can produce content with max 2012 and V-Ray 2. but why would I? what circumstances would make it financially viable option in 2022? full production power? haha, good one, maybe I should pair it with core 2 quad to get the proper experience?

and what you call questionable practices is what moves the world forward. smart people grinding hard producing value to consumers. turns out subscription model is what makes it worth their effort. owning stuff is a thing of the past.

has anybody ever used monthly payed V-Ray? I did. very convinient. £50 I guess that was, good deal, got things done. and chaos cosmos for keeps, nice freebie. now I can render it in Blender to my hart’s content as long as Blender is going strong. Thanks Chaos.

and using V-Ray used to be cool in 2010 and no longer it? well, stay cool then. use the cool thing. but I bet most of us will just use the tool that just makes sense.