Hi Guys
Will it be possible to trade-in an anual license to perpetual at a reduced cost, and also the other way around?
Hi Morne,
It’s Ivan here, let me help!
With the official release of V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, we will introduce our trade-in promo, which will enable you to replace your V-Ray 3 for 3ds Max - Perpetual license for a V-Ray for 3ds Max - Annual license, with 20% discount on the first year price of the annual license. The same offer will apply for V-Ray render node licenses. The trade-in promo will be valid until 30 September 2020.
There will be no trade-in offers available from annual to perpetual licenses.
If you’d like to take advantage of any of our offers, feel free to contact us at sales@chaosgroup.com or me personally at ivan.daskalov@chaosgroup.com.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
Ivan
Oh man, this is beginning to smell like Autodesk…
At least Autodesk have Indie licenses now…
True but for how long…
To Ivan,
I was wondering, as a perpetual holder with vray Next, couldn’t I just keep my perpetual licence copy (with dongle) with Vray Next installed and just rent Vray 5 (online) as and when I feel the need ?
Can both versions be kept installed at the same time ?
(sorry to hijack the thread).
Hi Jez,
Yes, sure, you can keep your V-Ray Next for 3ds Max - Perpetual license on the dongle and rent a monthly license whenever you need to use V-Ray 5. Both versions can be installed simultaneously on a single machine, albeit not for the same version of 3ds Max. If you will be using a single 3ds Max version, then to switch between V-Ray Next and V-Ray 5 you will have to uninstall the first and then install the other.
Thank you also for your feedback and your request for Indie licenses, I will forward this to our sales and product teams here at the company.
Let me know if I can assist with any additional info, I’ll be happy to.
Kind regards,
Ivan
Thanks Ivan.
Shame we can’t have just the one copy of 3DS Max and whichever copies of V-Ray installed for that one copy of Max. As you can understand, it’ll be a pain to keep installing / uninstalling V-Ray etc each time.
I’m currently staying on 3DS Max 2020 because I stopped paying Autodesk for perpetual licences, but I may (if I can trust them enough) pay for an Indie copy provided their offer isn’t only for one year (the implication with their default renewal-to-full-price suggests that to be the case).
with maya theres a zip download, as opposed to an exe, so you can have multiple versions on your drive, then change the maya environment file to point to the version you want, saving you having to install /uninstall etc…does max have this option?
Hi Jez,
I’ve consulted with our support team and they informed me that 3ds Max actually does not support having more than one version of a plugin installed on a single 3ds Max version.
So, as a workaround, except using 2 different 3ds Max versions, you could also try this: Chaos Docs
Kind regards,
Ivan
… what about a update from vray 4 to vray 5? or have I need purchase a new full license…?
and if I understand right, I have to upgrade to at least 3dsmax 2018 to use fully featured VFB2??
I am a vray user from the beginning in 2002 but this all has a very bad taste to me. Yes, it smells like autodesk. For me as a freelancer now double costs. Have to upgrade to max 2020 ( in my country no Indie licence…WTF autodesk!!) and more costs for vray. and shame on you chaosgroup: 380€ for a rendernode? Do chaosgroup collect cash for the shareholder???
Hi lightpixel,
I fully understand your concerns about the costs of V-Ray. And I thank you for being a long-time V-Ray user!
I’d just like to note that €380 is the new purchase price for a single V-Ray Render Node - Perpetual license. Yet, as it is in your case, you can upgrade your V-Ray Next Render Node - Perpetual licenses to version 5 for €190/node (excl. VAT).
Also, we do offer an upgrade from V-Ray Next for 3ds Max - Perpetual license to V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max - Perpetual license, which costs 50% of the price of a brand new perpetual license.
I’ve also included this information in the reply to your inquiry to us.
Kind regards,
Ivan
Not where I live they don’t
I do have a few questions (and maybe remarks) about the licensing:
1) since the upgrade cost of perpetual is 50% of a new license and next was released pretty much exactly 2 years ago, is it fair to assume that the targeted release cycle is now 2 years? So if I skip one update I should just buy a new perpetual license instead.
2) It is clear that chaosgroup wants users to rather buy rental instead of perpetual. Which may make sense for new customers since rental is cheaper until the 7th year (at current prices). However, having read at some reseller’s site that perpetual rendernode upgrade packs can only EVER be upgraded in the same pack size, this is rather… awkward, at best. So if we upgrade our 20 licences in a 20-pack we can only ever upgrade all 20 at once or throw them away if we can’t afford that or want to downsize the farm. Same if we bought 10 now and 2x 5 later, we could only upgrade 10 and 2x 5, not getting the maximum cost saving. That honestly seems very arbitrary and I don’t see the point.
I bought a Vray 1.5 license back in the days for home use (aside from what we have in the studio. Has always been a bit of a luxury, I know). 50% upgrade cost is huge for me and I’m not sure I can keep updating all 2 years at this point. The past upgrades were more far apart and still more affordable. Maybe consider an indie license in the future, not sure if that makes a lot of sense from chaosgroups perspective though.
Hi racoonart,
Thank you for being a long-time V-Ray user! I totally understand you pricing concerns (incl. request for indie licenses), we value such feedback and take it into consideration when forming future policies.
Let me address your questions:
> Yes, we are currently dedicated to having a 2-year major release cycle. This is shorter than before, but we are fully dedicated to making sure each major release contains massive improvements and great new features that are worth your investment. You are right that if you’d like to keep having perpetual licenses and if you are a V-Ray 3 user, cost-wise it is the same whether you made an upgrade to Next before the V-Ray 5 release, and now you upgrade to version 5 - or if you just purchase a brand new V-Ray 5 perpetual license.
Still, for our V-Ray 3 for 3ds Max - Perpetual license users, we have now provided the trade-in promo offer, where you can convert your V-Ray 3 perpetual license for a V-Ray annual license, with 20% off on the license price for the first year. And the annual license enables you to use V-Ray 5.
> It is correct that we have now introduced V-Ray Render Node packs, and each pack is regarded as a single product. So if you have a V-Ray 5 Render Node (pack of 20), you will only be able to upgrade the whole pack to version 6 (when released). Combining packs to achieve better discount per node is also not possible. This brings limitations only for perpetual packs, as with annual packs you can always change the pack size each year. So if you’d like to upgrade your perpetual licenses to V-Ray 5 packs, you’d need to consider which is the best pack combination for your needs.
If you’d like to discuss in more detail what would be the upgrade costs in your case, please contact us at sales@chaosgroup.com.
Thank you,
Kind regards,
Ivan
I understand why vendors are all moving to rental once they reach a critical market share. The problem for customers is that if you stop paying (or if for any reason ChaosGroup decides to stop offering the software, or to massively raise rents), you don’t just lose access to a service, you lose access to your entire library of assets.
One way to make the deal a little less unappealing would be for rental customers to accrue rights to a permanent license over time, à la Substance3D. If that’s not lucrative enough, you could even offer the option to convert a rental into a permanent license in exchange for a lump payment that would be smaller than the price of a full new license. All this would offer an exit and an insurance policy. The way the model is designed now, the risk of renting is too high and it will rise over time as you build your asset library.
The sad truth is that software isn’t a service, even if you call it that.
Thanks for your honest response Ivan, much appreciated. Unfortunately also what I feared. With 2 year release cycles and the upgrade prices (+VAT in my case) I don’t think I can afford keeping my license, especially in the current times.
Another thing we as a studio are interested in are the Vray collections. We are planning on investing in Houdini in the future and thus we might want to exchange one of our existing Vray (and phoenix) GUI licences for a collection. Are there any deals planned for that? Generally, right now there is not much for the perpetual users in terms of crossgrade incentives, maybe something to improve on.
I also fully agree to BBB3’s post above. We avoid rental as much as possible (but in terms of the vray collection we don’t have a choice if we want multi-dcc licenses). With rental, we customers give up a lever we had on the vendor before (being the option to not upgrade).
Its coming worldwhide later this year.
That’s great news.
Well…
Even if it’s true, given the evolution of Autodesk policy in recent years, I find it hard to trust again in the medium term
i’m totally agree with what you said previously and you’re right “The sad truth is that software isn’t a service, even if you call it that.”
What is also true is this whole market is taking the same path