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52 minutes ago, Cairyn said:

 

For pure Cycles users, this is a catastrophe, as you now lose the perpetual-ness AND have to pay for the full XP package.

 

 

I think Cycles4D  perpetual licence will remain users which bought it before Fused. But in time when expire Cycles4D maintenance contract can not be updated to newest version other way then switching to Fused. (at least that's how I understood it)

 

Maybe would be very nice think from Insydium give these users some special offer to conversion to Fused since there will not be other way how to update their perpetual Cycles4D licencies.

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17 minutes ago, bezo said:

 

I think Cycles4D  perpetual licence will remain users which bought it before Fused. But in time when expire Cycles4D maintenance contract can not be updated to newest version other way then switching to Fused. (at least that's how I understood it)

 

Maybe would be very nice think from Insydium give these users some special offer to conversion to Fused since there will not be other way how to update their perpetual Cycles4D licencies.

 

At least one user in this thread claimed that the Cycles Perpetual remained after conversion to Fused, yes. However: That version (even if it stays valid; I haven't seen a hint on the Insydium pages about this situation) is no longer upgradable (it definitely says so in my account for the original Cycles license that I paid for), so it will lose value very quickly: definitely no CyclesX, maybe losing compatibility with future C4D and even XParticles versions. Perpetuals (with running maintenance) are only superior to subscriptions when you voluntarily decide to drop out of the program altogether; I didn't actually want to do that so for me, Cycles4D has just been pulled out under my feet. They might as well have discontinued it altogether.

 

Thinking about it, maybe that is what they are doing. I suppose Cycles4D didn't sell as well as they hoped, so it's now being phased out. We'll see whether making it subscription only will be followed by dropping it from the "maintenance extras" list. I guess you cannot force a company to continue a product when it is not profitable, but personally I am lividly furious, as I am now left without any suitable renderer.

 

A special offer for Fused for Cycles4D-only users that don't need or want XParticles will be weak consolation, as the price of a Fused maintenance/subscription would come close to a Redshift subscription. -- Then again, maybe there aren't even any pure Cycles users. Only Insydium would know. But it would certainly explain why they so disregard this user group.

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4 hours ago, Cairyn said:

 

...for me, Cycles4D has just been pulled out under my feet. They might as well have discontinued it altogether.

 

Thinking about it, maybe that is what they are doing. I suppose Cycles4D didn't sell as well as they hoped, so it's now being phased out. We'll see whether making it subscription only will be followed by dropping it from the "maintenance extras" list. I guess you cannot force a company to continue a product when it is not profitable, but personally I am lividly furious, as I am now left without any suitable renderer.

 

 I think that is a very real possibility.  Remember that there was a long pause in Cycles 4D development because (unfortunately) the lead developer was out of the picture for a year due to illness.  Thankfully, I think she/he is back but that gap may have put Cycles 4D a bit behind that could have impacted its sales and stunted its growth at a time when Maxon is purchasing Redshift, and Octane is working with Embergen.

 

As I think about it...and this is pure speculation but with a positive spin.....I have to imagine that Insydium is focusing on porting XP to be GPU enabled and as the Cycles 4D developer has that experience with writing GPU enabled software (as Cycles is GPU enabled), they decided that is where they are putting the resource.  As such, they are evaluating whether or not Cycles 4D is worth the extra investment of hiring another person to continually keep it current.  I would imagine...probably not.   

 

But a big factor in all of this is (again, pure speculation but something that makes a huge amount of sense to me) is that XP is under threat from Embergen and Embergen is tightly integrated with Octane.  Embergen is GPU enabled and super fast.  XP is tightly integrated with Cycles 4D and...not so fast.   More people use Octane than Cycles 4D.  So from an Insydium perspective they had two cap-stone products: XP and Cycles 4D.   XP is doing well, Cycles 4D is not.  Now, XP is under threat from Embergen.  That is not a good position to be in for any company.  So Insydium needs more products (thus Meshtools and Terraform) to sell to insure that they have the funds to support XP development to be GPU supported and (hopefully) tighter integration with a more mainstream GPU renderer than Cycles 4D.  My guess is Redshift as they have a good relationship with Maxon.  Now, as Meshtools and Terraform took shape, I am sure they evaluated how much revenue they would generate if sold as separate plugins and deduced not enough to keep XP development going.  But...if bundled with a bunch of other goodies as part of a subscription plan then that could get people over the hump of moving into a re-occurring revenue model, especially for those who let their existing maintenance plans laps (which I imagine is more than you would think given their very generous 24 month allowance for lapsed licenses).

 

So do or die for Insydium is to get XP to be GPU enabled and tightly integrated with Redshift to the same level as they had it integrated with Cycles 4D.  Cycles 4D made sense in 2016 when it was the least expensive GPU enabled renderer for C4D at the time...but subscription models have changed all that with monthly purchasing.

 

So Cycles 4D is an "okay" product to have but honestly, brings nothing to the table for Insydium in the face of what C4D users can get from Octane or Redshift.  So it is an albatross now and that is why they are no longer selling any more perpetual licenses.  I do not think it is because of some subversive plot to push people to subscription but rather an easing of the pain when they discontinue development on it all together...thus the bundling with all the other goodies in Fused.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

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

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19 hours ago, Cairyn said:

Then again, maybe there aren't even any pure Cycles users.

 

I agree w/your conclusion that such an Insydium customer would likely be rare. I briefly paid/user for Cycles but *only* for XP scenes, as it paired well. 

 

Seems everyone uses XP, but I don't know many Cycles devotees.

 

Sorry circumstances turned against you there. Been there myself so many times w/tech.

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15 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

I think that is a very real possibility.  Remember that there was a long pause in Cycles 4D development because (unfortunately) the lead developer was out of the picture for a year due to illness.  Thankfully, I think she/he is back but that gap may have put Cycles 4D a bit behind that could have impacted its sales and stunted its growth at a time when Maxon is purchasing Redshift, and Octane is working with Embergen.

 

As I think about it...and this is pure speculation but with a positive spin.....I have to imagine that Insydium is focusing on porting XP to be GPU enabled and as the Cycles 4D developer has that experience with writing GPU enabled software (as Cycles is GPU enabled), they decided that is where they are putting the resource.  As such, they are evaluating whether or not Cycles 4D is worth the extra investment of hiring another person to continually keep it current.  I would imagine...probably not.   

 

But a big factor in all of this is (again, pure speculation but something that makes a huge amount of sense to me) is that XP is under threat from Embergen and Embergen is tightly integrated with Octane.  Embergen is GPU enabled and super fast.  XP is tightly integrated with Cycles 4D and...not so fast.   More people use Octane than Cycles 4D.  So from an Insydium perspective they had two cap-stone products: XP and Cycles 4D.   XP is doing well, Cycles 4D is not.  Now, XP is under threat from Embergen.  That is not a good position to be in for any company.  So Insydium needs more products (thus Meshtools and Terraform) to sell to insure that they have the funds to support XP development to be GPU supported and (hopefully) tighter integration with a more mainstream GPU renderer than Cycles 4D.  My guess is Redshift as they have a good relationship with Maxon.  Now, as Meshtools and Terraform took shape, I am sure they evaluated how much revenue they would generate if sold as separate plugins and deduced not enough to keep XP development going.  But...if bundled with a bunch of other goodies as part of a subscription plan then that could get people over the hump of moving into a re-occurring revenue model, especially for those who let their existing maintenance plans laps (which I imagine is more than you would think given their very generous 24 month allowance for lapsed licenses).

 

So do or die for Insydium is to get XP to be GPU enabled and tightly integrated with Redshift to the same level as they had it integrated with Cycles 4D.  Cycles 4D made sense in 2016 when it was the least expensive GPU enabled renderer for C4D at the time...but subscription models have changed all that with monthly purchasing.

 

So Cycles 4D is an "okay" product to have but honestly, brings nothing to the table for Insydium in the face of what C4D users can get from Octane or Redshift.  So it is an albatross now and that is why they are no longer selling any more perpetual licenses.  I do not think it is because of some subversive plot to push people to subscription but rather an easing of the pain when they discontinue development on it all together...thus the bundling with all the other goodies in Fused.

 

Dave

 

Few responses:

-Embergen currently is only a smoke/fire sim product. It's absolutely brilliant if you want nearly instant combustion sims, though even within the realm of fire/smoke it's limited in numerous ways I won't explain here. But c'mon X-Particles has a *far wider* and *far deeper* feature set. Embergen is no threat to replace XP. Not now, not ever.

 

Embergen is smartly keeping it's focus tightly calibrated.

 

I'm paying for the Otoy package that includes Embergen. I'm more Octane fanboy than critic, so trust me on this.

 

As for Insydium porting to GPU: I share the dream. But moving all of XP code to GPU processing would be a monster chore. Insydium's strength--it's incredibly deep product feature set--cloth, fluid, fire, smoke, particles, etc, all with integrated physics is going to make porting to GPU a chore for AI.

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2 hours ago, Icecaveman said:

 

Few responses:

-Embergen currently is only a smoke/fire sim product. It's absolutely brilliant if you want nearly instant combustion sims, though even within the realm of fire/smoke it's limited in numerous ways I won't explain here. But c'mon X-Particles has a *far wider* and *far deeper* feature set. Embergen is no threat to replace XP. Not now, not ever.

 

Embergen is smartly keeping it's focus tightly calibrated.

 

I'm paying for the Otoy package that includes Embergen. I'm more Octane fanboy than critic, so trust me on this.

 

As for Insydium porting to GPU: I share the dream. But moving all of XP code to GPU processing would be a monster chore. Insydium's strength--it's incredibly deep product feature set--cloth, fluid, fire, smoke, particles, etc, all with integrated physics is going to make porting to GPU a chore for AI.

The smart thing about Embergen (and correct me if I am wrong) is that it is tied to the render engine more so than the host DCC application. This is plainly evident from their timeline where they plan to implement the ability to import animated meshes in Q3.  Nevertheless, having the software linked to the render engine opens ups its market to more than just one DCC application.  So wherever Octane is used, so can't Embergen.  So points to JangaFX.  XP is tied to C4D only which explains why it can be a multi-physics system.  So points to Insydium.

 

But which company do you think has the larger addressable market size?  Obviously JangaFX.  XP, from their perspective, tied themselves to a Cycles 4D which time has shown was not the best choice for the reasons I mentioned.  They really need to get XP fully integrated into Redshift.  Also, as they have their own built in physics engine, you then have to ask:  well...why do they need to be coupled to C4D?  Can their multi-physic capability be agnostic to the host application?  If so, then what is needed next to be taken seriously in the broader markets outside of C4D: GPU acceleration.

 

So what is the goal for all?  Multi-physics particle and fluid simulations that is GPU accelerated and independent of the DCC application.  That opens you up to the largest possible markets.  Why wouldn't Insydium be thinking about that?  JangaFX is thinking about it based on their timeline.  Future Embergen enhancements are "particles as debris (bricks, wood shards)",  "granular solving for dirt/sand within explosions)", "support for multiple simulations per scene" and "USD - universal scene description".   In essence, overall tighter integration of physical simulations within a scene.

 

Now, I would imagine JangaFX is way ahead in approaching that goal as they have already have the GPU and fluid simulation capability and a tight integration to Octane.  I have to imagine implementing particle simulation and hard body physics simulations is not as tough as what they have already achieved.  XP on the other hand has a tougher road with getting both tight Redshift integration and GPU acceleration.  So points go to JangaFX.

 

Dave

 

 

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

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WTF? Cycles4D Perpetual simply stopped? No email to a paying Cycles4D customer, no announcement on their page, no special thread here, nothing. I only stumbled over this in this thread accidently. Not the kind of business demeanor I expected from them.

Shit. 

I can understand their decission, if it was not profitable. But their (non existing) communication really pisses me off. It is really like nobody cares for the customer, just cash (yeah I know, that's the harsh reality and I should not be surprised; I guess I watched to much Star Trek and am a bit idealistic).

That's really sad, as Cycles4D allowed me to stay up to date at least with regard to rendering with my R21. There was something to look forward to... That said: I guess there will be no update to Cycles4D in the remaining 4 months of my maintainance period... I hope they prove me wrong but right now they are just one indsidious company among many. I think they will schedule the next update such that no perpetual user will profit from it. Oh damn, I was soo looking forward to Cycles-X

So in 2021 Cinema4D really freezes for non-pro users. First Prime is stopped, then ProRender (a feature we paid for) is removed before it came even close to its potential (and surely this had nothing to do with the fact that MAXON wants to sell Redshift additionally), and now Cycles4D is not affordable for hobby users anymore. Sounds almost like a conspiracy to drive all remaining non-pro users away from C4D. Great 😕

 

Ah shit. Damn. 

No excuse anymore to not spend more time in that other software ...

 

 

 

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  • Guest changed the title to Insydium Subscribtion | Cycles | Fused Discussion
39 minutes ago, christianS said:

WTF? Cycles4D Perpetual simply stopped? No email to a paying Cycles4D customer, no announcement on their page, no special thread here, nothing. I only stumbled over this in this thread accidently. Not the kind of business demeanor I expected from them.

Shit. 

I can understand their decission, if it was not profitable. But their (non existing) communication really pisses me off. It is really like nobody cares for the customer, just cash (yeah I know, that's the harsh reality and I should not be surprised; I guess I watched to much Star Trek and am a bit idealistic).

That's really sad, as Cycles4D allowed me to stay up to date at least with regard to rendering with my R21. There was something to look forward to... That said: I guess there will be no update to Cycles4D in the remaining 4 months of my maintainance period... I hope they prove me wrong but right now they are just one indsidious company among many. I think they will schedule the next update such that no perpetual user will profit from it. Oh damn, I was soo looking forward to Cycles-X

So in 2021 Cinema4D really freezes for non-pro users. First Prime is stopped, then ProRender (a feature we paid for) is removed before it came even close to its potential (and surely this had nothing to do with the fact that MAXON wants to sell Redshift additionally), and now Cycles4D is not affordable for hobby users anymore. Sounds almost like a conspiracy to drive all remaining non-pro users away from C4D. Great 😕

 

Ah shit. Damn. 

No excuse anymore to not spend more time in that other software ...

 

 

 

I honestly believe that Insydium is trying to do the right thing by their customers.  Remember, everything you are reading here about Cycles no longer being updated is PURE SPECULATION!  Nothing official has been said.  I agree that the simple fact that XP is continued to be sold as perpetual license while Cycles moves to a subscription only license and is being bundled with a bunch of other plugins via Fused does not look good for the long term prospects of Cycles.   It is never easy to cancel a product as you will always anger some customers.  But, with that said, I do honestly believe that should Insydium announce no further development on Cycles that they are trying to accommodate the customer as much as possible.  IMHO, in this age of Adobe crooks and Adobe wannabe's, Insydium is a pretty decent company.  Their history shows they make providing outstanding value to the customer a top priority.  You really can't ask for more than that.

 

Nevertheless, please remember that this is ALL SPECULATION.  The only thing we really know for certain is that Cycles is now subscription only.

 

Dave

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

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Well, of course I checked after having pieced together the pieces here and before letting off some steam 😉 

 

If you now what you are looking for you will find the information. After locking into my account at Insydium I am greeted with:

 

Please note

You can no longer buy Maintenance for your Cycles 4D License.

To get all these plugins, products and benefits you should buy a new Fused License, or convert an X-Particles License to Fused.

 

And of course it says 

 

Only available as part of the INSYDIUM Fused collection

 

in very small letters on the Cycles4D page. Again, If I wouldn't have known what to look for, I wouldn't have noticed. So yes, it is not available stadalone anymore, not even as subscription. Which means I would be forced to pay much more to keep it up to date, a price simply not realistic for me. It will (hopefully) continue to work for some time, but no updates after my current maintainance period. And I guess downloading will also stop at some point. So yes, for me as a hobbyist it is basicaly killed in the longer run. But it is still a good engine and will keep C4D a bit alive for me, but this is really the start of the end concerning Cinema4d for me. There is simply going to be no development.

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7 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

The smart thing about Embergen (and correct me if I am wrong) is that it is tied to the render engine more so than the host DCC application. This is plainly evident from their timeline where they plan to implement the ability to import animated meshes in Q3.  Nevertheless, having the software linked to the render engine opens ups its market to more than just one DCC application.  So wherever Octane is used, so can't Embergen.  So points to JangaFX.  XP is tied to C4D only which explains why it can be a multi-physics system.  So points to Insydium.

 

But which company do you think has the larger addressable market size?  Obviously JangaFX.  XP, from their perspective, tied themselves to a Cycles 4D which time has shown was not the best choice for the reasons I mentioned.  They really need to get XP fully integrated into Redshift.  Also, as they have their own built in physics engine, you then have to ask:  well...why do they need to be coupled to C4D?  Can their multi-physic capability be agnostic to the host application?  If so, then what is needed next to be taken seriously in the broader markets outside of C4D: GPU acceleration.

 

So what is the goal for all?  Multi-physics particle and fluid simulations that is GPU accelerated and independent of the DCC application.  That opens you up to the largest possible markets.  Why wouldn't Insydium be thinking about that?  JangaFX is thinking about it based on their timeline.  Future Embergen enhancements are "particles as debris (bricks, wood shards)",  "granular solving for dirt/sand within explosions)", "support for multiple simulations per scene" and "USD - universal scene description".   In essence, overall tighter integration of physical simulations within a scene.

 

Now, I would imagine JangaFX is way ahead in approaching that goal as they have already have the GPU and fluid simulation capability and a tight integration to Octane.  I have to imagine implementing particle simulation and hard body physics simulations is not as tough as what they have already achieved.  XP on the other hand has a tougher road with getting both tight Redshift integration and GPU acceleration.  So points go to JangaFX.

 

Dave

 

 

 

I can see where you are comparing two "competitors." Their bundles mirror each other @first glance.

Otoy: Octane Renderer, Embergen fire/smoke, World Creator

Insydium: Cycles Renderer, X-Particles, TerraFormFX

 

However, do c4d pros view them as competitors? I don't think so. XP is commonly paired with Octane or Redshift. Meanwhile most Octane users don't have the full suite and thus never use Embergen or World Creator. 

 

As to which company has a longterm advantage...I don't currently have an opinion.

 

Embergen still hasn't reached version 1.0 and has more narrowly scoped ambition. Way faster but way, way more limited compared to XP.

 

Conversely, World Creator is way more mature rich in features TerraFormFX.

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46 minutes ago, Icecaveman said:

 

I can see where you are comparing two "competitors." Their bundles mirror each other @first glance.

Otoy: Octane Renderer, Embergen fire/smoke, World Creator

Insydium: Cycles Renderer, X-Particles, TerraFormFX

 

However, do c4d pros view them as competitors? I don't think so. XP is commonly paired with Octane or Redshift. Meanwhile most Octane users don't have the full suite and thus never use Embergen or World Creator. 

 

As to which company has a longterm advantage...I don't currently have an opinion.

 

Embergen still hasn't reached version 1.0 and has more narrowly scoped ambition. Way faster but way, way more limited compared to XP.

 

Conversely, World Creator is way more mature rich in features TerraFormFX.

So are you buying or leasing via their bundle (Octane, Embergen and World Creator)?  Not sure what your plans are, but I did look into the cost difference between buying and leasing in this post

 

The cost to buy is much higher in your first year over leasing (obviously), but owning all three plugins only costs $8 more a year to stay in maintenance than their subscription program.  To me, that is a no brainer - go perpetual.

 

Dave

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

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I think it's very poor that Insydium are asking users to convert licences - from perpetual to 'Fused' - without informing users of the exact terms of the licence they're agreeing to. I've asked them to send me a copy of the Fused EULA...

 

I'll see what the response is...

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