Charging for render nodes

[eyepiz]

"Service Pack" are Service packs...Autodesk released 6 of them for Max 2013 free of charge. I'm talking about version releases.

To be very accurate, we already release yearly updates, even twice a year in general - but they are called "Service Pack" and they are free for customer owning the last version.
So don't worry

[vlado]

"Service Pack" are Service packs...Autodesk released 6 of them for Max 2013 free of charge. I'm talking about version releases.

Like I said above, we are not in a position to release paid upgrades every year.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Joelaff]

If you think ChaosGroup is "playing the catch-up game" I completely disagree. I would just have to repeat what Dmitry(Morbid Angle) stated above. I use the "competition" and there is no way I will use them unless forced to. They prevent me from doing my job to the highest level, and that's what our clients pay for.

No doubt, I agree VRay is a fantastic product. When you compare the competition is stacks up very well in terms of quality, speed, and ease of use. Mental Ray is a joke for GI animations, and only recently stopped crashing all the time. There are other more serious renderers, but none that match the overall balance of VRay.

I think Chaos should charge more than they have been. But they have to do two things... One is keep the base price high and lower the render node cost to avoid flooding the market with low-ballers and keep prices reasonable for everyone. The other is to handle this transition gracefully, especially for existing customers. The upgrade costs to get render nodes should be much lower, to ease people into it.

I still think per node pricing is a step back to the 90s. Everybody has moved away from this. LightWave had the sense never to go there, and it got them a very big userbase of medium sized shops. There are still tons of them, though nobody likes to mention they use LightWave, as it's not "cool." Meanwhile the LightWave shops continue to make money and keep expenses low with no per-node costs and a great renderer that is wicked fast (don't know about for Arch-viz, but for VFX... Sucks for character animation, though).

[Christophe.Cot]

The other is to handle this transition gracefully, especially for existing customers. The upgrade costs to get render nodes should be much lower, to ease people into it.

Hi Joelaff, let me refer refer to another thread where I gave a concrete example http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...328#post590328

Looking back, the upgrade from 1.5 to 2.0 was (and still is) 400EUR.
As an existing V-Ray 2.0 customer, the simplest User license upgrade (including 1 GUI and 1 Render node) is 300EUR. That's already 25% savings to use the most anticipated release in the CG industry.

If you go for the full upgrade including User license + 10 Render Nodes, then it is 700EUR.

Therefore every render node license basically costs 40EUR in this case (700 - 300 / 10).

If we spread that amount over 2 years minimum, you reach even less than 1.7EUR per month per node.

Doing some quick estimation, in 1 node running 24h non-stop over a month would cost me about 30EUR average per month in electricity bill.
When knowing that, do you think those mere 1.7EUR per month per node are a totally unacceptable budget ?

And since V-Ray 3.0 is much faster, if you save 2 days rendering time (which is only 6% while we saw much better render time decrease with V-Ray 3.0), you might even not need to get them running all the time and so you basically already cover this expense

[Joelaff]

Hi, Chris,

Thanks for the response. Can you work up the math for 1 interactive license + 30 render nodes?

This is where we are right now. I have an email out to sales about this setup, but I guess they are pretty busy right now.

Our power is much cheaper here. Even during the summer months, when it is 37% higher than winter it works out to around $20-25USD/mo per node.

But still, yes, amortized out the cost is not that crazy... However, it is a HUGE increase compared to the past.. Yes, the past is the past, etc., etc. But this is what everyone based their decision to buy VRay on initially. So it DOES matter and IS relevant to users who are upgrading. We anticipated about $1200USD or so for the VRay 3.0 upgrade. Typically a software upgrade costs less than a new license, usually less than half, rewarding the loyal customers. Now, how much is it going to cost to upgrade 1 interactive Max license and 30 render nodes to VRay 3.0 ?? $2k, $3k, $4k? My reseller was thinking over $4k. My math shows maybe $3180. I have yet to get an answer from sales, because they are likely very swamped.

That is a really big increase, and customers were not anticipating this. That is the point I am trying to make. The cost increased significantly, and with little warning. This is why I am suggesting helping existing customers ease into this. Maybe that is going to be the cost in the future, but offer steep discounts to keep people with VRay this round. I really love VRay, and appreciate all the great support as well. Also, I really enjoy Phoenix (which we chose over fume very specifically because it did not have a per node fee).

[eyepiz]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here...but rendering a scene from 2.4 in 3.0 Beta (Irradiance map / LC) no settings changed, it take slightly longer to render, it also looks a bit noisier.., also using (brute force / LC) is still not an option for the Arch interiors I do in my opinion, even if its 3 times faster it still ends up 2 times slower than the IM/LC method.

And since V-Ray 3.0 is much faster, if you save 2 days rendering time (which is only 6% while we saw much better render time decrease with V-Ray 3.0), you might even not need to get them running all the time and so you basically already cover this expense

[michaelwbell]

That is a really big increase, and customers were not anticipating this. That is the point I am trying to make. The cost increased significantly, and with little warning. This is why I am suggesting helping existing customers ease into this. Maybe that is going to be the cost in the future, but offer steep discounts to keep people with VRay this round. I really love VRay, and appreciate all the great support as well. Also, I really enjoy Phoenix (which we chose over fume very specifically because it did not have a per node fee).

Compeletely agree. For some (not all) existing users, the price is significantly higher and (for ALL users), the licensing system is significantly more restrictive.
For new users, this new licensing scheme is more acceptable because they are not already invested in the software.

I really think the upgrade path should be revised for existing Vray users - offering 5x render nodes with 1 GUI licence instead of just 1. Or, at least offer this to users who upgrade to Vray 3.0 within the first 3 months of the new release, for example.
I do think something like this may still be a deal breaker for some users, but I do believe it would be approaching a 'middle ground' between theses 2 extremes. (unlimited nodes down to 1).

[ronald_a]

I still think per node pricing is a step back to the 90s. Everybody has moved away from this. LightWave had the sense never to go there, and it got them a very big userbase of medium sized shops.

Well, Lightwave is not (just) a renderer, so giving away free render lics might be in their calculation. Also not sure how well they are doing. But if you compare actual renderers that play in about the same league as vray does (arnold, renderman, 3dlight, mental ray as standalone, final render and even maxwell), they all charge for nodes. Giving away something for free is not a business model and I like the company that writes the software I use to stay in business very much, else I got a lot bigger of a problem.

And also one should compare the situation with the other end of things, for example Adobe. With their latest update, their biggest innovation was to make people pay more for stuff they dont need and that on a constant (monthly or yearly) basis. And once you stop paying them, you can't use their product anymore. Now that's a reason to be upset.

Ps: And if its just for the sake of having a free renderer, every 3d software has a half way decent render engine inside that can be used on a lot if not unlmitied nodes. who ever decides to go with an alternative as vray must also know that it will cost eventually.

[Christophe.Cot]

Can you work up the math for 1 interactive license + 30 render nodes?

Hi Joelaff, I would need to confirm what you currently have to check out the different scenarios.
Maybe easier would be to let know your company name so that I will check. If you prefer, you can pm me this info or send it to our (flooded) sales inbox

But this is what everyone based their decision to buy VRay on initially

When reading our case studies, news about V-Ray use everywhere or talking with customer, nobody ever mention that the decision to go for V-Ray is about price (of course) or render nodes. It is and will always be about quality work here.

Unlike other software, we do not "force" anyone to plan a yearly budget with a specific deadline for upgrades. We rely solely on the innovation we bring. To let you check by yourself, we even give a 3-month beta testing now. When you understand that it is worth it, we are happy to help you in this process.
If you don't feel ready to upgrade everything, it is no problem because we don't apply any deadline in the upgrade. You do it when you feel ready.

Don't also forget that in our new proposal we have rental policy if it fits you safer to lock the render node cost to a specific project budget.
There are also other solutions out there that could be an alternative to maintain your own render node namely Cloud Rendering - I talk about Green Button (V-Ray for 3dsMax) or Zync (V-Ray for Maya). Check out our interview of Atomic Fiction and their use of Zync for instance - they explain clearly that their business is to focus on the artistic part, not on maintaining a render farm so they outsource that aspect.

My reseller was thinking over $4k. My math shows maybe $3180.

As mentioned I will have to know what you have now as license to check that.

That is a really big increase, and customers were not anticipating this. That is the point I am trying to make. The cost increased significantly, and with little warning. This is why I am suggesting helping existing customers ease into this. Maybe that is going to be the cost in the future, but offer steep discounts to keep people with VRay this round.

I understand your point very well, and we will surely discuss this internally. Again we do not force a deadline for upgrades here.
Note however that the bare cost of the license is decreased (750EUR vs. 970EUR for a new license or 300EUR vs 400EUR for an upgrade).
The problem here is that we were operating on a model in place since 10 years by giving away render nodes (there were good technical reasons in the past) to the extent that everybody lost the perception of its value.
The fact that we have so many comments reminds to everyone that while this stuff was given "for free", actually it is quite valuable. I am convinced that the value it brings is far more than those mere 1.7EUR per month per node though, so as you said it is not that crazy.
I fully agree with ronald_a that "giving away something for free is not a business model".

I really love VRay, and appreciate all the great support as well. Also, I really enjoy Phoenix

Thanks for your support, I am sure you will love even more V-Ray 3.0

[Christophe.Cot]

I really think the upgrade path should be revised for existing Vray users - offering 5x render nodes with 1 GUI licence instead of just 1.

Once again to clear things, we do propose 3 upgrade path :
-> 1 User (300EUR)
-> 1 User + 5 RN (500EUR)
-> 1 User + 10 RN (700EUR)

So there is an upgrade path including 5x render nodes with 1 user licence as you suggest, it's not like we have only 2 extremes.
Don't also forget that by "user license" we understand 1x GUI + 1x Render Node so in fact with this upgrade you get a total of 6x Render Nodes !

And price wise it is in the same order as previous upgrade (~400EUR) so in fact just 100EUR more to receive all that is a pretty good deal considering the massive release we are talking about.

This is only available for existing for V-Ray users.

[flino2004]

I think passing from unlimited or 10 nodes for DR to 1 is huge....taking in consideration that besides the quality having free nodes was a good selling point.

Saying that, are you expecting that doing this would increase your sales? Or the sales will be compensated by charging per node to the existing loyal users?
The prices of services are going down every year (stills & animations) ...or they are the same regardless the inflation...and pretty much neither of the users could transfer this extra cost to our clients in most cases..... Another point in consideration is the illegal copies may increase significant or the crossover between illegal to legal or vice versa.

Some architectural firms seeing the rendering part as a free service for their clients when they offering in house, some of them don't want to spend more money beside a small renderfarm and sometimes they are willing to buy licenses of vray instead to use MR because an employe introduced Vray.... But now, they won't do it or it would be more difficult to made the Change.

In my opinion 1 license plus 5 nodes is the number that everybody could compromise.

[urbanite]

To me Chaosgroup new policy is fair. We know it it in advance, everybody can calculate if you can afford it or not, try it before purchase. I understand that it can be difficult to close the budged for some companies but you are not force to move to 3.0. I respect the huge job they are doing and if this is business model that Chaosgroup wants to fallow so be it. I trust that this will benefit us all in future releases.

[alainfx]

When reading our case studies, news about V-Ray use everywhere or talking with customer, nobody ever mention that the decision to go for V-Ray is about price (of course) or render nodes. It is and will always be about quality work here.

I have never met anyone that choose a product for its quality only.
It is always the quality and the price.

I fully agree with ronald_a that "giving away something for free is not a business model".

Well, in the game industry they have found a way.
Dozens of Pay-to-Play games get changed to Free-to-Play.
In that scheme, the game becomes free, customers only pay for add-ons that are not useful at all.
The beauty in this, Free-to-Play games make more money than Pay-to-Play games
Ok, well, I don't think it would work for the rendering business

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play

[Christophe.Cot]

I think passing from unlimited or 10 nodes for DR to 1 is huge....taking in consideration that besides the quality having free nodes was a good selling point.
...
In my opinion 1 license plus 5 nodes is the number that everybody could compromise.

I can repeat it 50 times if it helps somehow, we do not pass from X to 1 render node, we split user licensing and render nodes licensing leading to different options.

If you are a new user / for new license :
1) V-Ray 3.0 Standard User License (1GUI + 1RN): 750EUR
Great if your business strategy is to focus on the artistic part and use external rendering services (being cloud rendering or renderfarms) - you don't need render nodes
2) Bundle V-Ray 3.0 + 5 Render Nodes (1GUI + 6RN total): 1500EUR
Perfect if you have a small render farms (ratio 5 nodes per artists)
3) Combination of V-Ray 3.0 User license + additional Render Nodes licenses: fits exactly your needs
Flexible if you have a much larger internal render farm. Note you can either purchase them (fixed number) or rent them on annual/monthly basis based on your workload. Or even combine, have a minimum amount (imagine 5 to 10) and rent additional in case of peak workload (let's say 50) - in this case you do not really want to get 40 licenses that you use 20% of the time.

If you are an existing V-Ray 2.0 user / for upgrades:
1) Upgrade V-Ray 3.0 User license (1GUI + 1 RN) : 300EUR
2) Upgrade V-Ray 3.0 User license + 5 Render nodes (1GUI + 6RN total) : 500EUR
3) Upgrade V-Ray 3.0 User license + 10 Render nodes (1GUI + 11RN total) : 700EUR

You can see that we already have the option 1 User + 5RN you suggest for both new license (#2) and upgrade (#2). We did our homework
Why don't you consider these options ?

[Donald2B]

It's ironic that, you'd mention that, lately i'm finding myself thinking the same, only about v-ray. Albeit we're clearly looking for different features.

Overall it seems like artists from large budget studios appear to be in favor of new pricing, while small and medium sized companies find it unfair. The difference here is clear, if the money was coming out of personal budgets, directly or indirectly we'd see none of them "charge me all you want, i'm not the one paying, my company is fat, it can share some wealth" types of attitude. That's just my personal observation, which i'm sure is as wrong as everything else i've said

I strongly disagree here! We are very small, and are no where close to being a fat company. I personally own all the software I use at work. Including max, maya, VRay, nuke, adobe cc, etc. it costs me a LOT of money every year to keep up with subscriptions.

I learned a long time ago to support those that support me to do my job. Customer service, product features, production pipelines all contribute to my software choices. I buy the right tool for the job and to minimize the amount of my effort needed to complete that job. The list of software I mentioned above allow me to work the most efficiently for what I do. Could I save some money here or there, sure, but at what cost? More time stuck at work? Fighting problems with little to no support?

I'm far from rich, but I will continue to support chaos group, because they have allowed me to succeed where others have failed.

Again IMHO & YMMV.