Upgrade costs for Vray 5 / increase in the last 6 years

[olly]

Its true that vray rendernode is something like service and it doesnt make sense if it needs to be upgraded twice. It shoudl be same price to buy regardless what version od vray youre migrating from.

Totally agree.
If you are charging for render nodes (which I do not believe you should at all), it should be a one off fee per render node license that will render any version of vray.
The GUI license is where the magic happens, not the render node.

[sebbiej]

Its true that vray rendernode is something like service and it doesnt make sense if it needs to be upgraded twice. It shoudl be same price to buy regardless what version od vray youre migrating from.

Well said!

[ensar_huskovic]

The existence of INDIE is unfair. Lets say youre a freelancer and you hit 95K revenue. You shoudl have enough money to cover the price of regular licence. Even if you hit 50K you should be able to pay it. Imagine a company or a studio during a bad year with earnings sub 100K...still having to pay full icence. Things just dont add up. Its all playing in favor of one group of customers the indie license. And totally unfair to studios.

So my conclusion is:
Indie should go.
Subscriptions shoudl be same for all and priced fairly and fair amounts. (unlike the different prices for US and EU)
Vray workstation licence price? fairt as it can be.
Vray render node price? this one is questionable. It seems high ATM.

You don't understand the full reasoning behind INDIE. It is very important to know that there are businesses that are not participating in VAT system of their country because their income is below VAT threshold. That also means whatever they buy (licenses, hardware etc.) for the purpose of work is not tax deductible and they pay for it fully out of their pocket. From that standpoint, Indie is absolutely fair. Don't talk on behalf of those who need this option if you don't understand their position.

Regarding Vray5, I can't agree more with roboxx that this is not full version of vray - it is more like 4.5. I would like to add also that ChaosGroup was supposed to finalize GPU version before going to 5 because there are some features that still don't work on GPU and work on NEXT (alpha exclusion, blending alpha layers on transparent materials, etc.) that are so crucial, at least to me. Vray NEXT is an incomplete product, and here we are with version 5.

[sebbiej]

Regarding Vray5, I can't agree more with roboxx that this is not full version of vray - it is more like 4.5. I would like to add also that ChaosGroup was supposed to finalize GPU version before going to 5 because there are some features that still don't work on GPU and work on NEXT (alpha exclusion, blending alpha layers on transparent materials, etc.) that are so crucial, at least to me. Vray NEXT is an incomplete product, and here we are with version 5.

It would be nice if Chaos could've 'finished off' NEXT before requiring us to spend money on upgrading again. Like as you said, there are bits that are still broken in NEXT. I recently found that transparency doesn't work with alpha channels on textures: E.G: I used an alpha map to cut out a bottle's label edges to a particular shape, but then the dirt pass doesn't seem to take this alpha into effect and it renders incorrectly, showing the occlusion from the full geometry of the label rather than the cut out.

Also, I was expecting for RTX with CPU to be fully implemented, but I'm guessing now I have to upgrade to get that kind of feature? Pff.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

You don't understand the full reasoning behind INDIE. It is very important to know that there are businesses that are not participating in VAT system of their country because their income is below VAT threshold. That also means whatever they buy (licenses, hardware etc.) for the purpose of work is not tax deductible and they pay for it fully out of their pocket. From that standpoint, Indie is absolutely fair. Don't talk on behalf of those who need this option if you don't understand their position.

Regarding Vray5, I can't agree more with roboxx that this is not full version of vray - it is more like 4.5. I would like to add also that ChaosGroup was supposed to finalize GPU version before going to 5 because there are some features that still don't work on GPU and work on NEXT (alpha exclusion, blending alpha layers on transparent materials, etc.) that are so crucial, at least to me. Vray NEXT is an incomplete product, and here we are with version 5.

all i am saying is basically that the threshold for indie is totally wrong.
Most VAT payers here have to register to pay VAT roughly round 50K USD. if youre a VAT payer and freelance, youre mostly considered being on par with small company.
The INDIE should be based around 50K USD not 100K
you make 90K and youre INDIE eligible, you make 102K and you arent? Come on Making 90K makes you perfectly fit for all sorts of full subscription models.
Its just a matter of perspective.
We had to pay full maintenance fees of AD and licences all the way from 2006, regardless being VAT payers or not. Even though weve been making nothing compared to what we make now. So tell me, why cant you???
INDIE is not a fair model especially when based around the 100K USD threshold.

[JezUK]

all i am saying is basically that the threshold for indie is totally wrong.
Most VAT payers here have to register to pay VAT roughly round 50K USD. if youre a VAT payer and freelance, youre mostly considered being on par with small company.
The INDIE should be based around 50K USD not 100K
you make 90K and youre INDIE eligible, you make 102K and you arent? Come on Making 90K makes you perfectly fit for all sorts of full subscription models.
Its just a matter of perspective.
We had to pay full maintenance fees of AD and licences all the way from 2006, regardless being VAT payers or not. Even though weve been making nothing compared to what we make now. So tell me, why cant you???
INDIE is not a fair model especially when based around the 100K USD threshold.

in the UK the VAT threshold is £85k, or $100k USD.

I don’t know the VAT thresholds in other countries, as google wasn't very helpful

[trick]

...Making 90K makes you perfectly fit for all sorts of full subscription models....

Please keep in mind that the 100K is the total of EVERYTHING you SELL!!! All your subcontracts, cost, etc. is NOT included. In the past I have been working with Wavefront, TDI Explore and some other 30K+ software which required at the very least 30K+ machines, which required huge upgrade fees.....With the 50K you suggest not much room would be left. The INDIE license is exactly what makes it better for companies to hire external people who have their own licenses and leave them with a decent income. In these times I can not imagine a better solution.

[Morne]

In Russia the threshold for Indie is $50K, not 100 like a lot of other places

[squintnic]

I wonder if the game plan is to push people off of local render farms onto the Chaos cloud? I don't know, just a thought.

can you imagine lol
its insanely priced and last time i tried to use it had to get a refund cos it didnt work with keyframed noise - which i was exclusively using to drive a lot of animated elements. there are so many limitations with it and support is very slow.
its a really poor product and not ready to use - perhaps if it was cheaper than the average render farm price i would be swayed but i wont touch it until its really proven itself.

the integration is nice but doesn't offset the price and lack of features which i just dont get. its another symptom of chaos group over diversification from their primary product. many businesses lose traction when they deviate from their key product, they key is not to rinse your customers as you develop it...

i spend about 1K US on render farms a month at the moment so its a lost opportunity IMO....

[Miroslav Stoichev]

Hi everyone!

Our upgrade policies have not changed over the past 5+ years. The model we have followed is that perpetual licenses can upgrade to the next available version at 50% of the price of a new perpetual license. We have stuck with this policy for this long because changing it would bring many unintended consequences (including unfairly treating users who regularly upgrade).


What has changed is the frequency of new versions - it took two years to develop V-Ray 5, while V-Ray NEXT took significantly longer. Despite the shorter release cycle we definitely believe v5 is a strong release with many new features which took a great deal of effort to develop. It is not a new version for the sake of releasing a new version. In general 4 years is a really long time to stay on the same V-Ray core and we've had to do all sorts of hacks to preserve compatibility with 3rd party plugins etc. It is also especially bad since we have competition and we have to be able to move quickly. A shorter release cycle allows us to streamline the development.


We also decided to take a different approach from most of our competitors and not force our customers to change their preferred purchase method by discontinuing perpetual licenses. And we’ve kept the perpetual offering free of maintenance or other hidden “fees”.


Is this approach ok for everyone? Probably not. Especially if, as pointed out in this thread, you don’t need the new features we release with every new version. We understand that in such cases perhaps it would make sense for the user to remain on their original version and only move to newer version if the value it provides justifies the investment needed (whether it is a purchase of a new perpetual license for the new version or using one of our subscription offerings which gives access to latest builds at all times).

To help our customers navigate these choices and understand their options with Chaos better, we have designated an internal team which can be reached at https://www.chaosgroup.com/request-upgrade who can help you understand your specific options - including what you can do if your perpetual license is no longer eligible for upgrade (2 versions behind). There are options, including migration discounts we can give on a case by case basis. If nothing else, at least you’ll be sure that you made an informed decision, knowing all options available in your personal case!

[katho3d]

Totally agree.
If you are charging for render nodes (which I do not believe you should at all), it should be a one off fee per render node license that will render any version of vray.
The GUI license is where the magic happens, not the render node.

I agree with that too. I think 50 euros per render node might still be ok, but 380 euros is just a rip off. It is completely disproportionate if a render node license costs almost half as much as the GUI license.
I've been using V-Ray since version 1.5 and such price increases are simply not fair to long-term customers.

[olly]

Thanks for getting involved Miroslav Stoichev

Are you able to share Chaos's position as to why we need to pay for render nodes?

[vlado]

I would like to thank everyone for their opinions; we will definitely try to take them into account. I am closing this thread now; if you have additional comments, questions or concerns regarding upgrades or pricing, please send them to our sales and/or support teams at sales@chaosgroup.com or support@chaosgroup.com

Best regards,
Vlado