Dongles FAQ

[visions]

I purchased Vray 10 days ago!
I most certainly will not pay another US$30/- for the dongle + Additional shipping + Customs clearance fees + hiring a clearing agent + bribes + time lost.

that would probably work out to around US$200/-

So unless Chaos Group have a dealer in India, i will not pay that much

I do not have a 24x7 online connection but a dailup and the Pc that does Vray is a standalone one so i cannot use the online auth option.

The only choice i have in this situation is Take up a Vray Agency in India, Use the 1.47.03 version that i have, or return the software and ask for my money back.

None of these options or consequences were made available when i made my purchase 10 days ago......

I want to use the Vray Sun and Skies and would be happy with stable DR if that is available under the same conditions that i purchased the 1.47.03 version.

please address these issues. I have not recieved free updates over the years..i purchased the software 10 days ago! have a heart man.

Vivek

[DaForce]

I dont think it matters when you bought the software, and i dont think they will pay the $30 for you.
True you havnt got all the updates but you now have a better product than all the others bought many years ago.

I can understand the situation your in, but time doesnt matter, everony here has still paid the same amount for vray and will pay the same amount for the dongle, except the few of you who need to deal with customs and bribery...etc.. hehehe

As for this time lost that you mention.. im not sure what you mean.. you have a currently working version now right? by the time you get your dongle... in 2months for example.. you can then install the new vray and use the dongle.
Im sure in the mean time vlado will be able to provide you with a build that has sun and sky and still uses the old auth type.

I hope things work out for the best for you, as it seems like your in abit of a tricky situation. But i think the best thing to do is not to demand this that or the other but contact Vlado now via email and see what he can do for you.

Best of luck and welcome to the forum/vray community

[visions]

I dont think it matters when you bought the software, and i dont think they will pay the $30 for you........
Best of luck and welcome to the forum/vray community

Its not the US30/- if thats the ONLY cost involved. Its quite a little more than that amount. If there was a dealer in India then Paying the price for the Usb key would not be a problem, the issue is the clearing of this key from customs and that is 2-3 days of loosing work time and chasing the people at the clearing house.

I do not have Valdo's email, but have PM'd him as well as chaos requesting the Vray sun and sky version, but no response as yet.

I just feel that its a little unfair...that i have to now go through all that hassle.....Not what i had anticipated when i bought it last week.

Vivek

[DaForce]

Yeah I understand, but there will be other people out there who have been with vray since day one and still have to cover all the extra costs.
I am sure it would have been the asme when you bought max, unless of course they have a Distributer in India?

you can email him on vlado[AT]chaosgroup.com
It could take awhile to get a response.

Yeah i can fully see were your coming from. And it is annoying but atleast you have a working product at the moment.

Im sure things will work out ok for you

[visions]

Autodesk has a major presence in India, since the early 90's. I have around 4 3dsmax dealers i can choose from in my city itself, and practically every region of India is covered.

In fact i tried to purchase Vray from one of these dealers and he was also going to purchase it on the internet from one of the Authorised Chaos group dealers in the US and asked me to just get it directly using an International credit card.

I did email Valdo and hope that i can get a Vray sun / sky version sometime soon.

Thanks for responding
Vivek

[DaForce]

Ah ok cool. Autodesk is everywhere!!

Best of luck

[peter]

I will try to give some answers and suggestions to some of the above posts, hoping to shed more light.

1. by introducing the WIBU dongles we are trying to make our customers' life easier. not harder. we have taken the appropriate steps to ensure maximum amount of reliability and we believe the reliability level is good enough for production. and we as all of you - know what production is.

we have access to some statistics of both hardware vendors and WIBU dongle users. statistics show that the chances of dongle failure are about 5-15 times smaller than the failure of an average HDD. if we consider MoBo failure - then that chances of your dongle failure are about 25-200 times smaller than failure of (MoBo or HDD). does this sound convincing enough?

using a dongle will however give the user the ability to move their license around anytime anywhere, no additional communication with Chaos Group will be necessary. so our goal is to make it easier both both sides. and this decision has little to do with software piracy.

2. regarding the "I forgot my key at work" problem and other similar problems related to it. please read the FAQ carefully. what we are introducing is a hybrid system - dongle + floating license. the dongle will unlock the VRLSERVICE application. from that point on - you will be able to use VRLSERVICE just as you do now. which means - install your VRLSERVICE at your office, put the dongle there and authorize your home copy of VRAY through the internet without having to drag dongles around. important - the new licensing protocol is based on HTTP, which means - if you can access your servers with your browser - then v-ray will be able to do that too! moreover, V-Ray now supports HTTP proxies! which means - even at highly secured networks there is a way to let v-ray authorize through the internet via proxies, which are considered to be very secure for (probably) 99% of the market.

3. regarding the additional $30 charge for dongles. this price covers only the dongle price. we make absolutely no money out of it.

so if anyone thinks it is unfair for us Not to invest in our customers by providing them free dongles - they are free to use the current builds of V-Ray. V-Ray software costs $799, dongle costs $30. thats the case. price changes will reflect this price in the future.

4. regarding shipping from Bulgaria. as we mentioned before - dongles
will be shipped from the closest to you location and not from Bulgaria. which means that all of US and most of EU, Japan and other countries too - shipping costs will be just as making local shippings. each place and customer will be handled in an individual way and we will do our best to provide solutions to everyone depending on their local laws and regulations.

5. regarding renting - we will post additional information on license
renting. that will be possible

6. making a poll wouldn't do any good as
a) it will not change anything for 1.5
b) the people participating will be only the people who visit the forums often. we have hundreds and probably thousands of customers who rarely visit the place. so the results may be pretty incorrect.

7. regarding not sending the latest builds with all the latest features to everyone who asked for it - our decision is that the next build will be the RC1 and no copies were sent to anyone, except for a VERY small group of devoted people for testing purposes only. no exceptions.

8. regarding chances of both dongle failure, network failure and hardware failure... well - if you have a bad day and everything fails I am not sure anyone can help. what happens if your Mobo fails, your HDD fails, your dongles fails and you have no internet access to authorize online? I truly don't know. but what solution do the othrs provide in that case?

I think we do a lot more than many others do, providing means to handle the expected problems. how long does it take for you to authorize your 3ds max copy if the max authorization system fails as it occasionally does ? if you get your problem on Friday evening or Xmas ? and how many days do you lose? hmm? does Autodesk pay for your loss? Anybody ? does anybody over there provide an instant way of authorization? hmm ... and why is it OK for a multi-million dollar company with tens of thousands of employees to give you a break of 3-4-5 days and NOT OK for a company of 20 people to provide better ways of instant authorization and support? I wonder ...

about those render nodes being watered - what did the hardware vendor and software vendors do to make it easier for you ?

and finally - as Vlado kindly mentioned - we have been through a lot of discussions and thoughts and analysis so we hope our decision is a good one - both for our users and our company.

and please, lets keep the topic clean and not involve laws, politics etc that have nothing to do with the topic.

regards,
peter

[Dschaga]

Hey peter, is it a usb stick dongle where we can store our files too?

I know ppl with such dongles and it really impressed me, because this is the point where they don't see any problems with licenses anymore .. they really walk around with the files AND the license.

[priad]

well well, let's go for the dongle
With a Vray logo on it and place to stock data? hehe (it's a joke)
It seems that you have weigh the decision so it must be the best way for the future.
happy Xmas to all

[chris-x//]

I'm happy with it, would be even more with a boxed vray with printed manual, and goodies, a t-shirt, a vlado figurine, 5$ off coupon for maya version and a sneak preview cd of the xsi version. What ? Yeah it's christmas after all !

And for those worried about custom taxes, well, little packages don't usually get caught, gnomon dvd from cpnichols from usa to be didn't even get caught, (except those freaky gnomon guys put germany in place of belgium, took 3 weeks...).

Can't wait to put my hands on 1.5 + the dongle, thanks for the hard work

[suurland]

and why is it OK for a multi-million dollar company with tens of thousands of employees to give you a break of 3-4-5 days and NOT OK for a company of 20 people to provide better ways of instant authorization and support? I wonder ...

Autodesk have a 7 day graze period if the license fails, so they arn't giving you a 3-4-5 days break.

/Thomas

[yeohyip]

Will the shipping options include fedex/UPS? That'll make sure it gets door to door. As long as it arrives, I don't really mind the price .

Looking forward to 1.5.

[peter]

and why is it OK for a multi-million dollar company with tens of thousands of employees to give you a break of 3-4-5 days and NOT OK for a company of 20 people to provide better ways of instant authorization and support? I wonder ...

Autodesk have a 7 day graze period if the license fails, so they arn't giving you a 3-4-5 days break.

/Thomas

hardware works. license fails. what happens?

[suurland]

As I said, you get a 7 day graze period with max and you can keep working another 7 days, and in the mean time get your license fixed.

/Thomas

[peter]

As I said, you get a 7 day graze period with max and you can keep working another 7 days, and in the mean time get your license fixed.

/Thomas

I admit its true for the last versions of max. what about previous ones? i do remember lots of problems with the licensing and people that had to way for days to reauthorize. autodesk did make a step forward to improve this.

anyway - lets switch back to the topic.