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I gotta say, as a subscriber of C4D, and also owner of a perpetual license of R18. Not having the upgrade informations available to all customers, and acessible online worldwide... as easy as it is to purchase a new subscription... feels like a intentional bottleneck, to filter out everyone else who isnt a subscriber. There has to be a way to integrate a new business model (subscription) without having to make perpetual users to feel like complete outcasts? Also, speaking from a subscription client perspective, I feel that we need a more transparent roadmap of the software, things that we can look forward to. This update, personally for me, it isnt major to what I needed personally, comercially speaking. I dont use the premade character skeletons to any of my projects. The viewport changes were okay, but the magic bullet looks thing feels more like a gimmick than an actual improvement on things we wish we could do. There were no updates on NPR rendering, the toon shader remains untouched, no way to preview it on viewport without using interactive render region, that it is still..very slow to this day. There are some nice quality of life changes, and Im happy for those. And I appreciate all the hard work the developers put into this, and I know it is no simple process. But yeah man... this expensive subscription.. going in blind to every update. \

Ok, so I've had less than 24 hrs with the R23 demo but I can categorically say that Scene Nodes in r23 is nothing like Softimage ICE (and I say that as someone who still uses ICE on a regular basis today, many years after XSI's EOL). Scene Nodes actually feels closer to Fabric Engine than any of the other nodes based systems I've used over the years (I've used virtually all of them at some point in time!). Less than 24 hrs is nowhere near enough time with Scene Nodes to make any kind of judgement call on it's capabilities but I will say that things feel closer to an alpha build than a 'technology preview' public beta build. And that's no bad thing in and of itself, as I think that MAXON need to expose Scene Nodes to the widest spread of C4D artists to help them make sense of where to go next with the system. Once I got over the shock of Scene Nodes not having a representation in the Object Manager or any of the other legacy UX elements for that matter, I've found exploring the system to be relatively straight forward once you get a handle on MAXON's tendency to rename generalised CG nomenclature to 'C4D speak'. A lot has been made of the fact the Scene Nodes are the future of C4D as they don't use any of the legacy code base, and it really impresses when shifting large numbers of clones around the GL viewport; but I think it's fair to say, that in real world terms, Scene Nodes in their current state, are nearly as far removed from daily C4D use case scenarios as Bifrost Graph is to daily Maya workflows (SOuP is a far better example of an integrated Maya procedural nodes system). One thing that I'm finding hard to adjust to, is the apparent lack of visual debug tools. Most procedural systems allow the artist to visualise geometry/point cloud attributes in the GL viewport. At it's most basic, this facilitates the display of component attributes such as point/polygon/curve attributes, but with the vast scope of possible value modulations in a procedural setup, the artist also values the ability to query values at any point of the graph. In the example below, I'm querying the values of particles after a re-scale operation. The large properties box labelled Show Values is the interface the artist uses to set up the 'attribute display' (this is achieved by right clicking on the data stream at point of need - in this example, you'll notice a green V between the Rescale and Gradient nodes. On a more positive note, I was glad to see that the Nodes UI has a far clearer visual UX, compared to previous iterations. It's the only nodal interface that compares to ICE in terms of clarity and efficiency (Bifrost is horrendously wasteful of interface real-estate). But one small trick has been missed (this is a minor UX example, but it seemed apt to raise it here). You'll notice that there's a Scalar (float) node feeding into the Turbulence node in the screen shot below. Where this differ's in terms of UI/UX to R23's nodal interface, is that the value of the floating point value is displayed on the node itself. This means that the artist can see the value simply by scanning the graph (there's no need to open Turbulence property editor to see the value). This can be really effective in communicating key values in a graph for those occasions when an artist will be be returning to a scene setup after an extended period of time. Anyway, I'll stop here as I'm keen to carry on playing with R23. I have a feeling I'll be shifting a lot of my daily workload till after the weekend as there's a huge amount to grok, but I'm enjoying the journey so far. 🙂

Jon, For those of us, myself included, with nothing like your depth of nodes experience, could you expand on your comment above - ICE v Fabric Engine. I've no experience of either. Is this a positive or a negative? How would you summarise the difference?

Just wanted to point this out here as I'm sure people from MAXON are watching. I've noticed a couple of issues regarding the current live streams on 3Dmotionshow.com On the September 8th page the "MAXON News, Notes and Announcements" with David McGavran presentation links to a completely unrelated video, one that doesn't even feature David (see image below) It is also not present on the YouTube channel or the IBC 2020 YouTube playlist. There is also a missing talk from September 9th. Just wanted to make the relevant people aware.

This was the main problem with being a Studio MSA holder in the past and paying a premium for that MSA over what Prime and Broadcast license holders pay and then finding out that the latest release has no benefits unique to the Studio version. In essence, why am I paying more for the same benefits everyone else is getting at a lower price. Well, at least under the MSA program and the perpetual license program, if you don't like where the program is going you can opt out and STILL have access to your current version. Not so with subscriptions. If you opt-out, you have nothing until MAXON releases an update you do like and then you can rejoin the subscription plan. Interesting that you think subscriptions are expensive at $720. Try perpetual upgrades at close to or over $1000 - especially if you are a hobbyist. I could do a subscription for 4 years and have nothing or just purchase a whole new license every 4th year and have something that I can keep and still save some money over the perpetual license plan and only costing $615 more than the subscription plan -- but you now get something you can KEEP! Given their pace of development, the program doesn't change as fast as Blender. Maybe waiting won't be that bad for me and in 4 years, the program will have something that everyone will like. For those of us that hate the subscription plan and shudder at the high cost of a perpetual license upgrade, starving MAXON of funds for 4 years may drive the change we all need. Remember that this is a different economy right now (everyone is hurting: customers as well as clients in the entertainment industry). MAXON has Redshift and Red Giant to pay for and probably have lost some customers with the transition to subscriptions. So time is on the hobbyists side. We just have to get out of the mentality of "I need the shiny new ball right away"! Not at that price (near or above $1000). Dave "We are in the endgame now"

I hope this saves as much money as it costs. best regards Jops

Really? Your systems can check our licence validity automatically. You can sell subscriptions over the internet. Oh... sorry, just hang on a minuite... I can hear an alarm ringing... I think there is a very simple reason you won't put it on the website for online purchase. You don't want to.

So as the original post stated. Functionality is being removed for perpetual owners in a push to get subscriber money. The End.

I just watched the introduction to nodes training HRVOJE. The speed! The viewport works! This looks amazing.

Once again, no R23 perpetual upgrade pricing at the web-site. Can anyone from MAXON please explain why perpetual upgrade pricing is such a deep, dark secret? Why do I have to call the local sales office? This has been asked but not answered by a number of people over the last year and MAXON has been quiet about it. Again, not sure why. I do have a couple of theories though: MAXON is embarrassed by the price - they know it is high relative to how loyal customers upgraded in the past via the MSA. Originally, the perpetual upgrade price WAS going to be $720 and the subscription price was going to be the old MSA price of $650 but they made a mistake when they released the subscription pricing at the $720 cost. So they picked $995 because it sounded nice. Perpetual pricing is determined by a MAXON sales professional spinning a giant "Wheel of Fortune" type roulette wheel with varying pricing values on it and a few traps like "Past Perpetual licenses flip to subscription", "License server goes down just for you...permanently" and the dreaded "The only upgrade path for you is completely new license at $3495" Test marketing shows that by having a highly trained MAXON sales professional with 6 years experience doing grief counseling walk you through the sticker shock, they will see 20% higher sales. They posted it once at the web-site in Germany and the offices got egged. They posted it once and their support desk was flooded with calls complaining that the web-site must be in error. MAXON sales professionals love hearing the anguish in our voices. They record every call and play the best back to everyone during happy hour on Friday. 😉 Dave

I most propably will not update. Its not that I dont like some of the features, its just, that 1000€ for a yearly update doesn't feel right. I didn't cancle my msa, MAXON did. So I will use my new freedom. If redshift was included I would update thoug.

Yes, and their determination to hide the upgrade means I can't even buy it & get started, have to wait for them to call back. Then after the 30% price increase & difficulty in purchase, they can claim ' we don't see any demand for perpetual & cancel it in a release or 2. I will say, though, that R21 -> R23 is a good upgrade in terms of features & I am eager to get using it, but it's not great value for money & the whole transition has soured my attiutude towards them.

Don't worry, you're off the hook! 😄 It's bizarre to pay full perpetual price and not have access to the learning resource. I'd be a bit wary about going onto Ciniversity much knowing it'll be taken away. LinkedIn Learning is good as they actively update C4D tutorials, Pluralsight haven't updated C4D really in a few years and Greyscalegorilla is too expensive subscription model for a hobbyist tbh. It's sad that the access to the knowledge is behind so many different pay walls.

MAXON one is 1200 dollars on toolfarm... i think MAXON lives in parallel universe and there is no blender. no pandemic. MAXON is the only program in the whole universe and they setting prices as they want.... but hopefully in our universe there is blender. also 3dmax indie 325 dollars. houdini indie 270 dollars. and other indies too around this prices... i cant belive. c4d+redshift 1015 €. for this money i can buy 1 year of houdini+3dmax+ full lisence of redshift. or full pack of zbrush, substance, rizom and other programs and use they with blender. and with remained money can buy a 3070. well MAXON, bye bye. im out im selling my xparticles and cycles 4d lisences. 650$. who interesting can pm me.

News? No. Rumor? Nope to that too. Whisper? Not a peep. A deep burning hope in the hearts of hobbyists everywhere? Always....but that and $1.80 will get you an N95 mask which is probably far more useful in today's world than hoping MAXON makes a move towards indie licensing. In short, hope is a bad strategy. A better strategy is for hobbyists everywhere to not upgrade and wait as long as you can. We want R23...but we don't need it. We don't make money on it....it doesn't feed our families. So if we all waited everywhere and in every market and corner of the globe, maybe....just maybe....our combined lack of revenue means something to MAXON. That is the only way to move the needle on Indie licensing. Dave

The New Scene Nodes look very interesting and I think they should have kept the Neutron name. really Like: remesh, Multi UV Pose Library Deformer improvements Wish MAXON would Purchase X-particles and integrate it remove ProRender Make Redshift the default material set & renderer Offer Indie version of "MAXON One" for $10/month