Well, on the basis is imagery created by other artists, coupled with thoughts and comments on this forum, we have decided to take a gamble with Onyx. I say ‘gamble’ as we have not managed to try out the software as the company doesn’t have a demo. I don’t know if it is just me but I find this very very odd behaviour for a company, so much so that I decided to email them:
ME: “I wondered if you had a demo version of Treestorm and the Broadleaf plant creator for Max2009 (64bit) as we are considering purchasing your software.”
ONYX: “We do not have trial versions of our modelers and plugins. The best trial we always recommend to those who would like to see our software in action in front of their eyes prior to committing to the whole Suite is to purchase a single module, for example, OnyxTREE Broadleaf first and then, if you like it, you can purchase the whole Suite for the difference in price if you order within the 30 days of your purchasing OnyxTREE Broadleaf. This way, you will have a fully functional modeler and you can test it up and down in your office.”
ME: “However, what if I don’t like your software? Surely this is also the purpose of a trial?”
ONYX: "In all the 16 years we have been in this business, we have never had anybody who has not liked our software. You may call us arrogant, but we are pretty sure that you would like it too.
Now, if you know your criteria by which to judge the suitability of our software for your work, you can ask us about it. We are engineers and artists, not marketers, we will be glad to answer any of your questions to the best of our abilities which, at the end, might just prove to be more efficient way to get you the information you want than spending time with trial versions."
I am rather stunned by their responses to my questions and can’t think of another company who operate in this way. Just thought you might be interested.
ha haa that is typical Onyx developer talk for you.
I have used Onyx and treestorm since it was first released and I love it, but there support is shit. The developers are a bunch of tree hugging hippes (IMHO)
The first build of Treestorm for Max9 64bit was awful and it crashed constantly, but luckily the latest build works perfectly.
Tricky, if you need help just drop me a line. It will be much easier then getting hold of Onyx.
Lol… I for one have contacted them complaining that I didn’t like their software because it was unuseable (constant crashing)… but with the new version of treestorm I think those issues have been resolved.
When I complained that I couldn’t collapse a treestorm tree to a mesh without destabilising max, they thought it would be good customer relations to patronisingly explain to me that I was at fault.. ie that it was a contradiction in terms to collapse a parametric mesh to a static mesh and that I shouldn’t attempt to do so… So much for the old addage that the customer is always right!
Well, at least I am not alone in my concerns. I must admit, as soon as I posted this thread, I thought I shouldn’t have done so - ‘dishing-the-dirt’ and all that!
i’ve had Onyx software for years. The stand alone plant generators work OK. They deliver in their own quirky way with their own minimal UI. Treestorm is a seperate animal that uses the trees and shrubs created in the plant generators as a base to work from within MAX. Treestorm used to have the feature that one could substitute the plates for custom objects. This feature has been removed so the only reason for purchasing treestorm would be if you want your trees and shrubs to blow in the wind. Be aware that blowing in the wind will hit your render times.
Onyx support and attitude s exactly as you experienced it. No better, no worse.
What amazes me is that this software is probably the best you can get and, in my humble yet demanding opinion, it still is incredibly clunky and limited and time consuming to get reasonable trees…not fantastic trees, just reasonable trees.
It seems that this area is ripe for some one with no attitude and a sense of what a good UI is to come in and blow every competitor out of the field but…it just hasn’t happened. If we could get Itoosoft to come up with a good plant generator then we would have a company that has attitude that can’t be beat coupled with product. But I’m just wishing here.
mh
I don’t get it.
The whole, complete suite, with MAX plugin, is $600.
If you buy it, and Onyx disappears from the planet, it would still be worth it, IMO.
How much you guys charge per hour?
I mean, the damm thing should pay itself back with one or two renderings.
The one or two times in the last 10 years I contacted Onyx, I had some decent response, nothing stellar, but nothing bad either.
The exchange you had with them is just what it is: we don’t have a demo, people use the software, here is the gallery, we are small and essential, get over with it.
Anyways, for background vegetation, the trees are just fine, little tweaks to get nice volume of canopies. The palms are superb. For close ups they still need some mapping, but you need to do it once, then save the tree as a single object MAX scene, at 0,0,0 that you can merge into new scene on need.
And how can you argue with the president of Onyx who holds Doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Design?
For some reason, I thought they were old hippies living in Spain (because as I’ve recently discovered, thats where a lot of old german hippies live). But no, they are old hippies living in Massachusetts.
Hey, now there’s nowt wrong with hippies. I quite fancy being one myself. Their attitude doesn’t really sound ‘hippie’ to me anyway. A hippie would surely just say “Yeah man…have a freee copy for 30 days and see what you think. And if you don’t like it, hey…don’t use it. No worries”
Our Philosophy
We are scientists and artists and engineers bewildered by miraculous beauty of plants and all our products are at first and foremost an expression of that.No. you are a CONFUSED, typo-prone, type of nerd, if you put together science and miracle in one sentence. Use determinant articles wherever you see fit, but use them more. Having studied plants in the field for so many years, we have come to appreciate them for their beauty and we feel we owe them the portraits to the best of our abilities.“Bojana, Roll another one! Now, kids, lesson 5, ganja and practical uses.”
This thought has carried us through the toughest development work and we believe that it has brought ineffable quality to all our products.Ohhh, s**t me! Ineffable quality? Stop eating incenses man, they aint’ stick potatoes.
We do not care much about conventional marketing and selling tools to reach our customers.Instead, we " bullsh*t them once they come on the site with half-witted philosophical terms meaning absolutely nothing in context.
This has brought the finest group of people into our camp.The language scares me to no end. Camp, finest.
It’s either a jihadist or a cannibal talking here?
Meh.
We do not cut corners in providing technical support to our customers. The good, old telephone and live voice is preferable to even email.It’s a LONG distance from Italy to Massachusetts. Skype is fine, or do you regard that too as the devil incarnate? And what about people with issues with the Bard’s language?
Besides, the ineffable quality of a well thought out, and written, email is without match or paragon throughout the known and unknown sidereal space surrounding the little rock we call home.
Our customers are regarded as extended family and our technical support has always reflected that attitude.Not in a million years!
At most i asked for a product and/or support.
You two do what family ought to and be blessed, but do not draw me into the orgy, ta.
I just couldn’t resist.
Nothing bad to say about them (i do NOT use onyx at all, i prefer the ineffable quality of XFrog, myself), i have no direct experience.
I just couldn’t help but laugh and cringe at the wording.
Vlado please add a cheap philosophy page to the chaos website,a philosophy section in the forums, and cut short the tech support, that we may appreciate the ineffable qualities of meditation to resolve bugs ourselves.
Oh, and give us a nice picture where you hold a dandelion, too.
I was always under the impression that onyx trees werent very good, and i’ve used xfrog. Bit messy and seems difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it with good photo reference it’s pretty good.
