About vray 2 license after upgrading to 3 and backward compatibility.

[jstrob]

I saw somewhere that there is a 6 month "grace period" for using vray 2.0 after buying vray 3.0. Does that mean that if i want to prepare scenes for selling on line at places like turbosquid for example, I will not be able to prepare a scene with vray 2.0 after that 6 months period? This is really important for compatibility when we are selling models. i don't undesrtand why I should loose the vray 2.0 license when I paid for it. Or is there something I don't understand.

Are scenes prepared with vray 3.0 compatible to open and render in vray 2.0? This is annoying if we can't even test it before putting the model for sale.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I saw somewhere that there is a 6 month "grace period" for using vray 2.0 after buying vray 3.0. Does that mean that if i want to prepare scenes for selling on line at places like turbosquid for example, I will not be able to prepare a scene with vray 2.0 after that 6 months period? This is really important for compatibility when we are selling models. i don't undesrtand why I should loose the vray 2.0 license when I paid for it. Or is there something I don't understand.

Are scenes prepared with vray 3.0 compatible to open and render in vray 2.0? This is annoying if we can't even test it before putting the model for sale.

Yes you can open Vray 3.0 scenes using vray 2.0 Same as opening Vray 2.0 using vray 1.5

What it says that for 6 months you will have BOTH Vray 3.0 and 2.4 license. But after 6 months your 2.4 license will expire and you will be left only with 3.0 - If I'm not wrong o.o

Upgrade policy is not SUBSCRIPTION policy. Once you upgrade u lose old one. If you want to keep both licenses I suppose u would need subscription which I think chaosgroup is not offering...

[jstrob]

Subscrition is for getting new update for free. It is the first time in my life i hear of a software with which you loose the right to use the old version when you upgrade... It can always be useful to ba able to use the old version when we want to sell product online or collaborate with people who did not upgrade.

[nakama]

I think we hat this discussion during the beta-phase ... as i was worried with that too. but vlado replied:

Originally Posted by nakama
can chaosgroup clarify this - that rendering 2.4 after 6 month transition periode is still possible but with restriction on rendernodes as with 3.0 licenses?



Exactly.

Best regards,
Vlado


http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthread.php?73904-V-Ray-3-0-for-3ds-Max-Beta-Open!/page7


I hope this ist still a valid answer.

[nakama]

actually i just did an upgrade with one of my 2 licenses (2 dongles) and after the upgrade to 3.0 i was not able to use that dongle with 2.4 anymore.

seems this was not supposed to happen. anyway i reverted the dongle back to 2.4 with my original 2.4 rtu file ... and are currently left with 2 dongles and not able to experiment with 3.0 at this state.
I contacted support.



update: ... I just confirmed by support, that the two complementary 2.0 licenses were just bound to the first dongle, instead of each license on each dongle.

[jstrob]

ok I think that would be a must. We should be able to use 2.4 license until we want when we paid for it. For someone who sells models for example, he needs to be able to be compatible with everyone.

[svetlozar.draganov]

I saw somewhere that there is a 6 month "grace period" for using vray 2.0 after buying vray 3.0. Does that mean that if i want to prepare scenes for selling on line at places like turbosquid for example, I will not be able to prepare a scene with vray 2.0 after that 6 months period? This is really important for compatibility when we are selling models. i don't undesrtand why I should loose the vray 2.0 license when I paid for it. Or is there something I don't understand.

Are scenes prepared with vray 3.0 compatible to open and render in vray 2.0? This is annoying if we can't even test it before putting the model for sale.

You will be able to use version 2.4 even after 6-months period but it will use Vray 3.0 Render Nodes for Distributed Rendering.

[ChaosGroup]

To add a clarification.
We will release a special V-Ray 2.x build which will work with V-Ray 3.0 licenses. This means if you have 1 Workstation (which includes 1 Render node) and 1 additional Render Node license you will be able to work with V-Ray 2 or V-Ray 3 using the GUI inside Max and render with V-Ray 2.0 or V-Ray 3.0 on two machines.
Keep in mind that the Render Node licenses are used by V-Ray Standalone 3.0 too but not from V-Ray Standalone 2.0.
The complementary 2.0 licenses are regular 2.0 licenses that have expiration date set and their DR and Network licenses are not changed.
At the moment we do not offer subscription package.

[seishi]

Hi,

I am still confused...

We have changed our lic server to Ver3.0, and our old Vray 2.x installed more than a year ago works fine with the vray 3.0 lic server.

Even so, will we need to install the special Vray 2.x, if we want to use Vray 2.x, after the grace period?

Thanks,

[Filip.Stoyanov]

Hi seishi,

If you own V-Ray 2.0 licenses you will be able to use them indefinitely regardless of the license server version. If you have only complementary V-Ray 2.0 when they expire you will need the special build that uses V-Ray 3.0 licenses.
The version of the license server is not related to the licenses that you have on the dongle and how long you can use them.

[seishi]

Filip,

Thanks for the info.
But… I got even more confused… I wish there were a clear announcement about the license upgrading and backward. It seems even our local reseller might be misunderstanding about it.

Let me explain what’s happening over here.
We have upgraded the lic server to 3.0 the other day. This means we have reprogrammed the dongle as well.
I once installed Vray3.0 on my PC and one of the rendering nodes, but as we decided not to use Vray 3.0 for a time being, I uninstalled 3.0 and reinstalled 2.4 on the two computers. We have more than 20 workstations but only the two of them experiences Vray3.0 for a short time. The license status is as attached. We want to use the old Vray2.4 for a time being, possibly even after the Vray 2.0 exp date indicated in the license status, which is 07 Sep 2014.

So, my questions are:
1. I think this my biggest question. What is the “complementary V-Ray”? Although we received an email from Chaos entitled “Complementary V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max,” we don’t find such download links or explanation in Chaos Group’s site.

2. While you say, “If you own V-Ray 2.0 licenses you will be able to use them indefinitely regardless of the license server version,” is there anything that we need to do in order to keep on using Vray 2.4 plugin as well as Vrayspawner 2.4 even after the expiration date? I don’t think we are using the complementary V-Ray now.

3. What is exactly going to “Expire” on the expiration date while you say, “If you own V-Ray 2.0 licenses you will be able to use them indefinitely….”? Yes, we own 14 copies of Vray2.0. What would happen on and after 07 Sep 2014 to us?

4. What is “a special V-Ray 2.x built which work with V-Ray 3.0 licenses” indicated in this thread #8? Again, our Vray2.4 works fine now. Who and when would need it? When are you going to release it?

I have some more questions, but I think I need to have the answers for these questions first.

Thanks,

[Filip.Stoyanov]

Thank you for the details. To answer your questions:
Q: 1. I think this my biggest question. What is the “complementary V-Ray”? Although we received an email from Chaos entitled “Complementary V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max,” we don’t find such download links or explanation in Chaos Group’s site.
A: Complementary V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max licenses are regular V-Ray 2.0 licenses but with expiration date set to 6 months. You receive them for free when you upgrade to V-Ray 3.0. They allow you to continue and finish your projects you have started with V-Ray 2.0. You use those licenses with regular V-Ray 2.0 installations available now on our web site.

Q: While you say, “If you own V-Ray 2.0 licenses you will be able to use them indefinitely regardless of the license server version,” is there anything that we need to do in order to keep on using Vray 2.4 plugin as well as Vrayspawner 2.4 even after the expiration date? I don’t think we are using the complementary V-Ray now.
A: On the dongle from the screenshot you have only complementary V-Ray 2.0 licenses. You will not be able to use them after they expire on 07.11.2014 (this includes the interface and rendering). Unless you have other dongles if you want to continue using V-Ray 2.0 after 07th of Sep you will have to use the special V-Ray 2.0 build which will use V-Ray 3.0 licenses. It is not yet done. Keep in mind that even with the special build you will be able to render only on the same number of machines as your V-Ray Render Node 3.0 licenses.

Q: 3. What is exactly going to “Expire” on the expiration date while you say, “If you own V-Ray 2.0 licenses you will be able to use them indefinitely….”? Yes, we own 14 copies of Vray2.0. What would happen on and after 07 Sep 2014 to us?
A: On 07.11. your V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max and V-Ray RT GPU licenses will expire and you will no longer be able to use V-Ray 2.0 interface and rendering engine (including V-Ray RT) unless you install the special V-Ray 2.0 build that uses V-Ray 3.0 licenses. Your V-Ray 3.0 and Render node licenses will continue to work. We can check for you if you own regular, non expiring V-Ray 2.0 licenses but we will need your company details. If you want us to do this check for you please drop us an email to support @ chaosgroup.com

Q: 4. What is “a special V-Ray 2.x built which work with V-Ray 3.0 licenses” indicated in this thread #8? Again, our Vray2.4 works fine now. Who and when would need it? When are you going to release it?
A: This special build will use V-Ray 3.0 licenses for the interface and V-Ray Render Node 3.0 licenses for the rendering. It will have the same functionality as normal V-Ray 2.x build. Your V-Ray 2.4 works with the regular complementary licenses that will expire on 07.11.2014. When they expire if you still want to use V-Ray 2.0 then you will need this special V-Ray 2.x build. Can't give an exact time frame for this special V-Ray 2.x build at the moment. We hope it will be ready before the expiration dates of the complementary licenses we have provided to everyone who have upgraded to V-Ray 3.0.

We want to make as clear as possible all the elements of the new V-Ray 3.0 licensing so let me know if you have other questions.

Note: When I say V-Ray 2.0 and V-Ray 3.0 I refer to all 2.x and 3.x versions.

[seishi]

Filip,

Thanks for such a quick reply!

Now, I 'm much clearer. Your explanation clarified all my questions!

But I think Chaos Group should release a note containing those information somewhere the top of the website so all the users would easily understand it. At present, the information about the 2.x / 3.0 licensing is very fragmentary and confusing to the users.

Thanks, anyway!

Seishi Unuma
Takenaka Corp.
Tokyo Japan

[Filip.Stoyanov]

We will double check with our marketing and sales team the available information on the licensing. Probably we could add more details.

[jamesvecore]

So our v-ray 2.0 licenses just expired and this whole situation was definitely not explained to us by chaos group or our software reseller and caught us by surprise. If I had known our previous 2.0 licenses, which we paid full price to have active permanently were going to be take away from us by doing a upgrade, I would not have done 3.0 upgrade. Maybe it was my mistake for not understand the upgrade process clearly, but I have never had another piece of software do something like this with licensing. I understand that we can use the new 2.5 version which leverages the 3.0 license model, but that doesn't help us with old files which might need to be rendered again in the future. Specifically we have a plugin version system that keeps track of a scene's plugin versions (i.e. v-ray) and ensures that whenever the file is opened or rendered, that is done so with the same version of v-ray it was last saved with. The ensures that old jobs which might need to be revisited for a client can be re-rendered pixel for pixel with the same version a v-ray as needed (with the clients new changes of course). Forcing us to use 3.0 or 2.5 makes it impossible for us to ensure the scene renders the same as the client got it last time. I'm not naive enough to expect a scene setup in v-ray 2.2 will render exactly the same in 2.5. There will be differences maybe minor, maybe not. I don't really think its fair to take away the 2.0 licenses and I don't really understand what business sense it makes for chaos group to do this when those licenses have already been paid for.

Isn't anyone else frustrated with this situation? I have to imagine some larger studios will continue to want to use both v-ray 2.0 and 3.0 at the same time...