New Licensing ?

My Vray 5 perpetual license expires in mid December 12, 2022. If I choose to migrate to subscription, do I do that now and then that subscription goes into effect/starts on December 12?

I don’t want to lose/forfeit the next 4 months of license I have already paid for.

Thank you.

Hi Mark, A perpetual license doesn’t expire, but it is constrained to a particular V-Ray version. If you see a Dec 12th expiration date, are you sure you don’t have an annual license?

Hi Phillip,

attached is a screen grab of my account. I guess I don’t have an expiration date but rather an activation date and that is show for Vray 3. so, I am thinking my annual payment is due each Dec 12?

Thanks.

Got it - that Dec 12, 2014 date is when you activated the license - thanks for being with us these past 8 years!
So you have two perpetual licenses - one for the V-Ray 3 and another for V-Ray 5. Both have priced options for upgrading or migrating to V-Ray6:

Choosing the subscription option gets you V-Ray 6 (subscription) while leaving your perpetual license as-is.

Thanks for you reply. If I migrate my Vray 5 perpetual to a Vray 6 subscription, is there any benefit in waiting some period of time to do so? Like until Dec 12 or maybe until 3DS Max 2023 supports Vray 6? Thnaks!

Hi Mark, The primary value of migrating to a V-Ray 6 subscription would be to gain the new capabilities of V-Ray 6 and access to V-Ray in other creation tools. There isn’t an independent financial benefit to do it now or later, especially as there isn’t a time-limit stated for when our discount will be valid.
As for Max 2023 - it’s always Chaos supporting the host version rather than the other way around, and we try to add support for Max within a week or two of its release. That said, our policy is to only support new Max versions on the current V-Ray release, so while you can count on V-Ray 6 supporting Max 2024, V-Ray 5 won’t - so that may be the trigger for when you really want to switch if you’re always adopting the latest Max version. I hope that helps.

Hmmmm, this isn’t good. If this is the future, it’s sounding worse and worse everytime I hear something about licencing from Chaos. Seems like you guys are really doing everything you can to force us down the subscription route…

While I understand the cut off point with fewer 3ds max version support (aka autodesk policy) I was very surprised to ditch Phoenix 4 compatibility with vray 6. I have not seen any feature that requires vray 6 to utilize Phoenix 5. It is not that it is 3rd party plugin so…enjoy your subscription, it is better for you, it allows us to focus on development rather than support older outdated (you name it) software and we value loyal customer. It is almost the same words autodesk were using and we all know how it ends. This is your business but I just cannot read this nonsens that it is much better value for us when you are doubling the price for upgrade from perpetual and give discount for sub. But hey, I am only customer, loyal badge comes with subscription.

I agree completely, this feels so much like Autodesk. Thanks guys.

Understood. I have always preferred to stay current in the upgrade path. That may be easier for me as a one person freelance operator, then it is for a company with many seats.

As for Max 2023 - it’s always Chaos supporting the host version rather than the other way around, and we try to add support for Max within a week or two of its release.

I guess I knew that but was brain cramping. Thanks for re-iterating.

That said, our policy is to only support new Max versions on the current V-Ray release, so while you can count on V-Ray 6 supporting Max 2024, V-Ray 5 won’t

That is an important point I was not aware of. For sure I will want to be using Vray6 for that reason and the other benefits I see to staying up with the most current versions of Max, Vray, etc. For my purposes I will migrate to,subscription, so I get the cost discount on this first move. Hopefully the pricing for subscription going forward will be reasonable. The Max indie pricing is very reasonable, so as a plug-in or extension to Max some cost alignment (not more expensive than) is hoped for.

I hope that helps.

That all helps a lot and thank you.