Charging for render nodes

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

From few months I'm on my own too.. and trust me I'm not jumping from license changes, but I do understand the change.

[alainfx]

The rendering business has changed a lot in the past few years. You are looking at it from your side of the fence, but we have our own viewpoint. Somebody mentioned there are a lot of other, cheaper and free alternatives - that's fine and good and artists as a whole have taken advantage of that. But, at the same time, our workload has not decreased - on the contrary, people expect us to support more and more advanced features that require ever more time and effort to implement. We had to make choices and we did. I can assure you the change in the licensing policy was a very tough decision for us to make, knowing full well the reaction that it will get.

Best regards,
Vlado

Thanks for the clarification.

[flino2004]

This universal license for render nodes would made more sense if we have universal licenses as well... I think if you have a vray license you have the right to use it where you want to use it instead to pay for a separated license like those standalone render engines

[glorybound]

I remember, about 20 years ago, a draftsmen I knew wanted to go to school to learn some automotive modeling software. Apparently, the software was very expensive, and if you knew the software, you were worth $100 grand a year. So, raising the cost of software can make the software out of reach for some, and make others worth more; there's an increase in perceived value. Having said that, I'm not sure you can charge more for better work. I know, it sounds odd, but I am finding people just don't care, or see the importance of higher quality renderings. I am not talking about the laymen, either.

[Morne]

I'm not sure you can charge more for better work. I know, it sounds odd, but I am finding people just don't care, or see the importance of higher quality renderings. I am not talking about the laymen, either.

JIP!!!
You can say that again. More and more I find it's only us, the artists, that care about good renderings and getting better and better. Clients don't care, they just want "any" rendering for next to nothing.

And if that's not bad enough, I see over at CGTalk people are hinting that Autodesk might change their license model AGAIN somewhere in October. Seems there's talk of going the Adobe route

[AlexP]

I know, it sounds odd, but I am finding people just don't care, or see the importance of higher quality renderings. I am not talking about the laymen, either.

Certainly find this a lot with certain clients from certain industries.
It's rather cost and turnaround time that determines if they want to work with you.

[ozztheforester]

It's completely true, and not overreacting at all!
Looking at the situation a few years in the future, chaos group might start renting out vray and who knows maybe even start charging for it on per hour bases??
I do hope Vlado and Chaos Group would change their mind and change their mind about the node licensing and keep it the way it is, the way we love it...

[glorybound]

Autodesk might change their license model AGAIN somewhere in October. Seems there's talk of going the Adobe route

http://news.autodesk.com/press-release/archived/autodesk-delivers-more-flexible-pay-you-go-access-design-engineering-and-ente

[Neilg]

I'm not sure you can charge more for better work.

This isn't true at all. 'better' doesn't just mean image quality though, it's the level of service you offer throughout.
I know for a fact we charge way more than our competitors.

[glorybound]

I would agree, somewhat. If they trust you, like you, and if you deliver without missing deadlines. Like they say, 'Cheap always comes out expensive".

This isn't true at all. 'better' doesn't just mean image quality though, it's the level of service you offer throughout.
I know for a fact we charge way more than our competitors.

[gunny263]

after reading through all of this, my first reaction is disappointment.
I haven't seen any of the 'GOLD STANDARD' support someone mentioned. My emails to support go unanswered and, when they are, there is no solution. The gold standard was SGI back in the day when i received phone calls within minutes of requesting support. Yes, I paid for that support but it was worth it as it kept projects for my clients moving forward. With vray, i shrugged it off as a 'get what you pay for' thing. It's great to know I can expect more from Chaos Group now.
'post count' on a forum does not equal support. Just do a search on how to composite render elements - so many different responses and no definitive answer. Don't get me started on linear image workflow!

It seems the preferential treatment of some customers is continuing with the 'email us to discuss your specific case' response to pricing concerns.
I don't need 5 node licenses. I have 2 nodes so either I cut loose a render node and stick with the base 'upgrade' or I spend more.

I'm also peeved that my current software will be made defunct 6 months after the eventual release of 3.0 - This appears to be a strongarm tactic to force people to purchase the new software. The current release works fine for me and, more importantly, for my customers. With my pipeline, 3.0 is SLOWER to achieve the same quality so why would I want to pay to go backwards?

As far as beta vs. non-beta. Can't we be clear that vray has been and always will be in perpetual beta? There are many posts on here where a particular problem can be solved by emailing someone at Chaos group to get access to a new build that isn't available anywhere else.

[joconnell]

Eek - lots in there!

As regards the support thing, what you mention in the last line is a good example of it - if you find a bug in vray and it's stopping your project from getting done, they'll make you a custom build for vray that solves your specific problem and gets you back working again - that's the type of support they're giving you.

Your current 2.4 license won't magically disappear 6 months from now either, it's only if you upgrade your license to 3 that you'll get the 6 month tail off. If 2.4 is working for you nicely then by all means keep it that way! As regards 3 being slower what I'd say is if you open up a 2.4 scene and it render you might find it slower but it largely depends on your setup. We had the same thing with 1.5 up to 2, a lot of things changed with sampling so the settings in 1.5 scenes were total overkill and made 2 initially look like a step backwards. Do some clean scenes with the new features and you'll find a tonne of speedups.

On the pricing they're allowing everyone to email their sales, not any preferred customers. They know this is a messy one to handle so they want to come to the best deal for all customers with the upgrade pricing and everyone's needs are different so that's why you've to mail them - they can't cover every specific possibility on their website so just drop them a mail and they'll do something for you!

[philip kelly]

I'm also peeved that my current software will be made defunct 6 months after the eventual release of 3.0 - This appears to be a strongarm tactic to force people to purchase the new software. The current release works fine for me and, more importantly, for my customers. With my pipeline, 3.0 is SLOWER to achieve the same quality so why would I want to pay to go backwards?

I am on 2.30 and max 2013 all legit, I am presuming that this will not be defunct 6 months after they release 3.0?

Don't fix it if it ain't broken....

Also there is a very simple fact here.
The price of our business to going up, Adobe CC, Subscriptions from Adodesk, and now Vray.
The price of running the business is beginning to run high.

We put up our prices and the the work goes east to countries where they have no copywrite laws and they don't have to pay for software and clients couldn't give a flying fudge either.

Doesn't look good.

phil

[rivoli]

I am on 2.30 and max 2013 all legit, I am presuming that this will not be defunct 6 months after they release 3.0?

you're right, it won't happen. 2.30 will keep working just fine. it will happen only if you decide to upgrade your 2.30 license into 3.0, in such case after the grace period of 6 months it will adjust to the new, vray 3, license terms.

[joconnell]

Not at all philip, If you open http://localhost:30304/getstatus in a browser (presuming you're running the vray license server on your machine) it'll show you when your license expires. I'm on 2.4 in work here and it's set to never expire. If you don't upgrade to 3, you'll keep everything as is.