Will it be possible to buy materials to keep (not continued subscription) ?

[Richard7666]

Will it be possible to buy single materials/packs at some point? Like Quixels do with Megascans. I'd even happily buy the plugin up-front.

The thing stopping me at present is the library subscription model; I don't want unlimited acces to 400+ materials, I want a plugin and about the 10 of those materials which I'd actually use, which I'd happily pay $50-100 each for and then they're mine to keep.
This last part is important to me.

I do realise a continued revenue stream is attractive from a business perspective, but from a customer perspective it feels a bit like being held to ransom (I hate Adobe and Autodesk for it!).

[Ivaylo Katev]

Well, let's wait Dinko to answer, i just want to mention a point that may be important.
If we provide this service, the material you need will be technically not the same file present in the library, because the library materials require the library license. So, we will prepare the material especially for you, perhaps with your name encoded inside it. Well, sounds good but you lose the ability for quality improvements. For example we introduced significant improvement in the car paints rendering combined with significant size reduction ( from 200MB to 30MB ). We are waiting for official releases of VRay and we will replace the car paints of the library with new versions. Now, imagine the situation with multiple customers having individual materials, how they can update them in case of improvements? The only reasonable possibility is just to pay again for the same material. My suggestion, even if we decide to offer this option, use it only if you are sure that you need exactly the same rendering results without any improvements and updates.

[dinko.dimitrov]

Hi Richard,

As Ivaylo stated one of the main things behind the chosen business model is that we want to constantly deliver to our users the best possible experience. Having the subscription model allow us to continually improve the technology and deliver the new features and improvements to our users withing the subscription period and without extra fees and efforts. Also, the subscription model makes the materials affordable and provide access to the technology to all users but not only to large companies and corporations.

[Richard7666]

I do see that, but on the other hand, not all users WANT continued access to 400+ materials.

Is it not possible to just allow a user to redownload a purchased material when it's updated? Eg, user buys "wood_material_001" for $60, $100 or whatever Chaos need to make a profit,, and when that material is updated to work with newer features (faster rendering, higher res or whatever), the user can just log in and download again. I'm sorry to compare to Quixel but that's basically their model and it's a lot more user friendly for small users.
They also offer a full subscription like VRscans for those who want full access

Subscription-only stops users like myself (who don't want or need access to a whole library) at the gate.
It would just be nice to have the the option to pay more per material but get to keep them.

[Ivaylo Katev]

I see, you have a point, we will consider this ability

[Richard7666]

I see, you have a point, we will consider this ability

It's great how you guys at Chaos are willing to listen to feedback this is why I love you!
Cheers

[Crayox13]

Also...if I stop my subscription after a year all my scenes that use vrscan materials will stop rendering?...I mean correctly. As you can see, we'll have to consider this on the long run, if we start, hard to go back.

[Ivaylo Katev]

when the license expires, you get rendering with watermark, this allows still to explore the abilities of the materials, but not for production