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R25 Expectations


Guest Igor

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2 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

The max CUDA compute capability available from Nvidia is 8.6 and Redshift recommends 7.....the difference between 8.6 and 7 does not provide a lot of headroom between what Redshift needs and the very best (and most expensive) that nVidia has to offer. 

 

To be fair, there is a difference between Redshift recommends and Redshift needs. I'm currently running 10 series cards with 6.1 compute - although they are coming to the end of their workng life : ).  I think the 10 series launched in 2016?

 

Nevertheless - I certainly appreciate that if you get stuck on the subscription bandwagon - I won't - you may well have that pressure to upgrade. I guess it depends on Maxon's approach to enabling / allowing subscribers to use 'old' versions. And I wouldn't want to bet on that. 

 

-------------

 

PS: and there certainly was a lack of clarity on the renewal of maintenance agreements. Not good communication on their part - and understandable confusion!

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On 8/23/2021 at 12:55 PM, 3D-Pangel said:

So when R25 gets announced in September, I have one question:

 

Will it be a good day for Maxon or a good day for Blender?

 

Maybe we should set-up a poll?

 

Dave

 

It'll be a good day for Houdini users with the announcement of H19.   f blender.

 

Honestly the reason why companies are shifting to subscription is the software has matured enough to where they can't charge for upgrades anymore because what is added is minimal tweaks, minor enhancements and bug fixes.   Because these companies can't make money off people sitting on their perpetual licenses, they adopted subscriptions. 

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46 minutes ago, johanal said:

 

It'll be a good day for Houdini users with the announcement of H19.   f blender.

 

Honestly the reason why companies are shifting to subscription is the software has matured enough to where they can't charge for upgrades anymore because what is added is minimal tweaks, minor enhancements and bug fixes.   Because these companies can't make money off people sitting on their perpetual licenses, they adopted subscriptions. 

 

I don't believe that any 3D program at the moment is in the position that they are so perfect that they can't continue innovating, or even close to that point. Look at C4D: even when they finally finish their scene nodes and have their connection between the new core and the GUI, they still need to add huge makeovers for their particle and hair systems, a working cloth system that can handle collisions properly and doesn't freak out, not to mention that they have no up-to-date renderer built in. Looking at the massive amount of new papers from Siggraph, I do not doubt that other 3D apps have room for development.

 

Also, don't f blender. Blender is not for f'ing.

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1 hour ago, johanal said:

 

It'll be a good day for Houdini users with the announcement of H19.   f blender.

 

Honestly the reason why companies are shifting to subscription is the software has matured enough to where they can't charge for upgrades anymore because what is added is minimal tweaks, minor enhancements and bug fixes.   Because these companies can't make money off people sitting on their perpetual licenses, they adopted subscriptions. 

 

Which then begs the question why the Blender developers are able to add major enhancements and new interesting functionality with every new release? And why plugin developers for various 3DCCs continue to innovate and come up with brilliant original features? Why indie developers still pop up with original 3D related apps? And why the industry keeps innovating as a whole, requiring new workflows and techniques in 3DCCs?

 

Nope, 3D software is FAR from matured. Stating this is just not true (begging the question indeed). This argument is only used by software rental proponents, as far as I am aware.

 

And as @Cairyn also mentions: the state of a number of C4D's core functionality could see massive improvements. Quite a few areas have been languishing for years, and consequently other companies and software have taken the lead.

 

 

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1 hour ago, hvanderwegen said:

 

Which then begs the question why the Blender developers are able to add major enhancements and new interesting functionality with every new release? And why plugin developers for various 3DCCs continue to innovate and come up with brilliant original features? Why indie developers still pop up with original 3D related apps? And why the industry keeps innovating as a whole, requiring new workflows and techniques in 3DCCs?

 

Nope, 3D software is FAR from matured. Stating this is just not true (begging the question indeed). This argument is only used by software rental proponents, as far as I am aware.

 

And as @Cairyn also mentions: the state of a number of C4D's core functionality could see massive improvements. Quite a few areas have been languishing for years, and consequently other companies and software have taken the lead.

 

 

Regardless of what action developers do or do not take to improve their software, the point that really needs  to be made here is that subscriptions reduce the competitive pressure to improve the software.  This is my biggest concern over subscriptions because before "maintenance" meant "improved" whereas "subscriptions" now just mean "rent".  And with all rentals, you can have good landlords and bad landlords.  Adobe and Autodesk have shown that for some of their subscription products, they are not the best landlords.  The updates are light, bugs remain unfixed and long standing user requests are ignored.

 

So in this discussion, we also need to rethink the term "mature".  Here the software is definitely NOT mature.....but the user base is very mature.   Mature user bases have grown comfortable with the software.  The software is embedded in their pipelines.  There has been a lot of investment of both time and money in that software.    The customer base can be mature with the software but the software itself could be very far from being fully matured. 

 

Mature customer bases are inclined to stay with a software that is not improving as fast as they desire simply because of the effort required to move to something else.  With perpetual licenses, you just decide not to upgrade....but that meant no revenue to the developer.  Subscriptions simply remove the financial penalty for not improving the software.  Prior to subscriptions, developers worked to earn your upgrade dollars.  Now they don't have to because if you stop paying the rent you get locked out.  The user now get's penalized -- not the developer.    Plus, in those early perpetual licensed years, new and innovative features grew the customer base.  But at some point in a product's lifecycle, the market share will stop growing or the cost to generate new features far outweighs the additional sales they generate.   

 

It is at that point that a company switches to subscriptions because it is the best way to preserve revenue without additional development expenses.  Innovation is no longer a priority in a subscription world.

 

Honestly, where I want to see innovation is in the seamless import of scenes from one software to another.   Imagine if a competitor developed a program that converted all ALL of your C4D assets to their platform without error or any lost information (sorry but there are always errors or lost data with the file transfer formats currently being used).  Shader trees are perfect.  All geometry comes in exactly how it was modeled -- no triangulation and all quads intact.  All rigs, UV's, weight maps, bones, and animations come in perfect and ready for continued editing -- just as you left them in C4D.  And it could do it in batch mode.  Just point it to a directory and off it goes.

 

Break down that barrier to move your assets and you re-introduce the need for the host application to stay competitive on features regardless  of their licensing model.  In this world, when you stop paying the rent, you don't get locked out from using your work.  You just take it with you.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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I wish it would be a massive Timeline overhaul. It REALLY NEEDS ATTENTION. It's old, clunky, outdated. I feel it's more and more time and power-consuming to do there something after I once worked in Blender.

Also I'm highly concerned with the degrading software quality and stability. I rarely get my r21 to crush (only while scripting and because of my own fault) but R23 already is considerably worse. It has a lot of bugs (in dynamics cache, extrude generator etc) and... it crushes! Just for no reason. I don't know why, but it's much less reliable. I was afraid it would happen, as well as development stagnation, right when devs told us about subscription options, and... It actually happens now 😞

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9 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Regardless of what action developers do or do not take to improve their software, the point that really needs  to be made here is that subscriptions reduce the competitive pressure to improve the software.  This is my biggest concern over subscriptions because before "maintenance" meant "improved" whereas "subscriptions" now just mean "rent".  And with all rentals, you can have good landlords and bad landlords.  Adobe and Autodesk have shown that for some of their subscription products, they are not the best landlords.  The updates are light, bugs remain unfixed and long standing user requests are ignored.

 

I find this a curious statement. Rental means that every month the user has the choice to continue using and paying for a software or not. Project done? Stop paying until the next project comes along. Need fewer seats after a big rush? Reduce.  So for customers it is actualy easy to optimize costs. Cost optimization for the customer always means that Maxon has to offset this loss by attracting new customers, which is difficult in a competitive environment and requires you to deliver a value to the customer that others can't, or at least can't do as good. Maxon is thriving and commercial users over all love subscription, this means the package that is Cinema 4D does find a lot of traction with people that have a choice. Anyone who ever ran a business knows that the cost of a tool is only a small part of the equation. If an expensive tool gives you an advantage that is worth more than it costs (could be productivity, feature, Artist availability, .. anything) it is worth paying for. Actually even the cost for the most expensive 3D tools currently on the market is usually in a range that it is no major factor in the over all cost, especially not if it can be optimized and does not need a large up front thanks to rental.
When it comes down to it the deciding factor isn't monetary cost, if anything rental leveled out the field even more, increasing competitive pressure! To me it seems the perception of the value of Cinema 4D among several users here and those out there making Cinema 4D a financial success is quite different and is closely related to the state of the software at each point in time and how it can contribute to the success of the customer deciding what to rent.
Anyone feel free to disagree with me, but please take the business reailites into account when looking for alternative explanations for why so many new users opt for Cinema 4D.

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14 minutes ago, srek said:

Anyone feel free to disagree with me, but please take the business reailites into account when looking for alternative explanations for why so many new users opt for Cinema 4D

I think what would help for a lot of hobbyists or people just wanting to get started (ie not an already established company with a budget) would be to include a very low cost  Indie version of C4D. Otherwise how will MAXON attract new customers just starting.

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18 minutes ago, kbar said:

I think what would help for a lot of hobbyists or people just wanting to get started (ie not an already established company with a budget) would be to include a very low cost  Indie version of C4D. Otherwise how will MAXON attract new customers just starting.

Personally i agree, but i have no idea if this is a priority or not. Regardles of this being on the agenda or not, i can only say that we are running here, not walking. This includes everyone involved into the business side of things, licensing, etc.. Many people underestimate the effort it takes to put a product out, even if the product itself is more or less done. So it might just be that Indie just doesn't have priority yet over other more pressing issues. As i said, i don't know, not my area, not my task and even if it were, not mine to talk about publicaly.

In general, if you (not you Kent, you know this stuff by heart 🙂 ) want to see things go faster and further -> https://www.maxon.net/en/about-maxon/careers

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Huge and hot topic as I can see.

There a lot has been said what could and should be improved (dynamics, hair, bodypaint etc) but so far a proper integration of RS is needed the most in my opinion. I still have to use my old xpresso materials presets and can't switch to a new and sexy node system cause it doesn't support many features that xpresso does. The feeling that RS is just a plugin that tacked on and not a native engine is still there.

And the second is a viewport.
I know it's de très mauvais goût aka a bad manner to compare to Blender but having a proper viewport render like Eevee or U-render is super needed.
The production speed increases as a content shortage so most of the times I don't need to render out a proper render with GI, reflections etc.
Good viewport render like in a Autodesk 3DsMax or Blender would be a huge help.

Thanks,
Anatolii

 

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4 hours ago, srek said:

I find this a curious statement. Rental means that every month the user has the choice to continue using and paying for a software or not. Project done? Stop paying until the next project comes along. Need fewer seats after a big rush? Reduce.  So for customers it is actualy easy to optimize costs. Cost optimization for the customer always means that Maxon has to offset this loss by attracting new customers, which is difficult in a competitive environment and requires you to deliver a value to the customer that others can't, or at least can't do as good. Maxon is thriving and commercial users over all love subscription, this means the package that is Cinema 4D does find a lot of traction with people that have a choice. Anyone who ever ran a business knows that the cost of a tool is only a small part of the equation. If an expensive tool gives you an advantage that is worth more than it costs (could be productivity, feature, Artist availability, .. anything) it is worth paying for. Actually even the cost for the most expensive 3D tools currently on the market is usually in a range that it is no major factor in the over all cost, especially not if it can be optimized and does not need a large up front thanks to rental.
When it comes down to it the deciding factor isn't monetary cost, if anything rental leveled out the field even more, increasing competitive pressure! To me it seems the perception of the value of Cinema 4D among several users here and those out there making Cinema 4D a financial success is quite different and is closely related to the state of the software at each point in time and how it can contribute to the success of the customer deciding what to rent.
Anyone feel free to disagree with me, but please take the business reailites into account when looking for alternative explanations for why so many new users opt for Cinema 4D.

First of all, I trully appreciate you adding your opinion and perspective here. 

For sure, there are a lot of factors that I cant see it from my point of view. For instance, the cost issues, it affects differently for different people, specially depending on what part of the world they are from.  
Im not a company owner, Im a one-man studio, so these costs of subscriptions, for me personaly, escalate quite quickly by the end of the month, and with a non steady income (some months I might get some projects, others not so much..)  it feels quite scary the idea that I might not be able to have access next month to my own essential work files.  Sure, C4D monthly is alright.. (not cheap.. but alright) but add other things that are piling up to this weird subscription model, and suddenly, you are paying for a full C4D license every year, without actually getting a license... not really owning anything.

You mentioned that C4D finds a lot of traction with people that have a choice, but this is ultimately the big issue here. There isnt really a choice anymore, there is this fading impression that we have a choice right now as a customer... but in reality we dont. Maxon is punishing whoever doesnt pick the "right choice" for them (i.e subscriptions) by putting whoever picks perpetual licenses (the choice they dont want you to pick) in extreme disadvantages: 
- No more access to a great learning database for the software!
- Only 2-3 months of bug fixes on a 3.5k dolars software. (whoever bought the R23 last year, didnt get the horrible timeline copy/paste bug fix for instance, and never will) 
- No more maintenance, only the giant price for updates.
- No access to mid-year update, having to wait 6-7 months to have a chance to get a new feature on a software. 

It just feels very short sighted to treat people, who have worked with the software for such a long time this way... removing them from the possibilities and features features they were able have acess to since the beginning of the C4D's history. 

Look at what Pixologic is doing for example, I bought Zbrush 4 years ago, perpetual, full price, etc...   and they continue to offer free updates ever since. 
They started the subscription model 2 years ago, and they continued to give equal support and updates to both users, perpetual and subscription. There is no shady "Hey subscription users, you will get this first! Perpetual.. well.. later this year" type of business.
 
I guess the keyword in the end is choice.
 

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Regarding cost. I am not sure what else you calculate into the cost of Cinema 4D, but if before you had the MSA to access Cineversity then you had a. the initial up front cost of buying the license, and b. the yearly MSA cost to maintain Cineversity access and a current version. At €700 the yearly cost for the subscription to Cinema 4D is roughly the same as the MSA was, except that now you get more frequent updates than before. For you the running cost should be about  the same as before and you get more fixes. 

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