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If I may, I think it perfectly okay to disagree with the points someone has made. That is what freedom of expression is all about. But when do decide to disagree, can we focus only on the topic at hand and not make a guess at the motives of the person who said it? Honestly, you can't presume to know what motives are behind a person's post. Only the poster can know that. Maybe I am tired of and a little bit alarmed by the growing political discord in America, but some of the posts being made on subscriptions vs. perpetual licensing have also been growing more disturbing over the years. It is one thing to disagree with a person's position based on the quality of the argument that is presented (the hope being that if the person's argument is sound, fact filled and of high quality --- we actually, listen and grow from it) but let's do so without inferring motives that we in no way can really know and then attack that person for those same imaginary motives. In short, focus on the points and facts being made and not the motives - and by association - the character of the person who is making them. "Big minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, small minds talk about people" - Eleanor Roosevelt I firmly believe that to do 3D, you must be "big minded." Therefore, everyone here has my respect, and I would hope you all feel the same way about the Core4D forum members the way I do. If so, let's focus on spreading some of that respect around the next time an argument is presented that you disagree with. Enough said...go render something. Dave

I honestly hope that BoganTW is being paid by Maxon. If not, he should. I've never seem such devotion to defend defenseless acts from a Big Corporation ignoring and/or harming their loyal users.... Honestly,, as I said before, this dichotomy of "subs lovers" vs "subs haters" that BoganTW talks about is artificial, it does not happen in real life. Most people do not have a binary thinking about that. I would guess most people have a more nuanced view about the issue. For example, I like some of my subscriptions because they are affordable ((i.e. Octane, Adobe, Maya, etc...) and I didn't subscribe to others because the value is not there (i.e. Cinema 4D). I would definitely subscribe C4D if we had a Indie version, half the price of Maya Indie. In both cases, the subs I like and the subs I don't, I hate the fact that I won't have access to my files if I stop the subscription.. And I would support legislative action to stop this anti-consumer behavior. But this opinion if very far from the "subscription hater" strawman that BoganTW likes to attack.

You haven't heard an argument against choice because there isn't one to be made. Lack of choice only benefits the company. Toon Boom Harmony is the industry standard for 2D animation. It is to 2D animation what Maya is to 3D animation. They have offered perpetual and subscription options for years. Every year, I buy their Silver Support plan, which is the equivalent to what the MSA was. I pay more for that option than I would have if I had bought a subscription, but it isn't a ridiculous amount. The company makes a little extra money off of me, and I get a perpetual license with the same upgrades as the subscription users. Companies can still subscribe if they need to increase or decrease seats. Everyone has the same access to the same program. There are no walls blocking training or plugins, and the difference in price is reasonable. There is no argument to support not offering both options except greed and user control.

Here is an elaborate setup - Tracer. It is a reduced version of MoGraph tracer but setup can be expanded to include more features Some basic control are available Graph is complex but groups and subgroups are commented to good extent to explain what is going on 01_Tracer.c4d

You don't need a ceo to have a community, you just need people with a passion for something. The original 3 founders pretty much never posted or made themselves known, and yet places like postforum, cgtalk, c4dcafe and the german c4dtreff had nice communities there; people make communities, not ceos. The guy in charge was inconsequential. Now that Dave is here what has changed? You get a post once or twice a month and all it tends to contain is some tone deaf defence of a new shitty policy. Our studio has subbed. We didn't want to, saw no benefit and actively dislike them. But the writing was on the wall for several years watching anyone on a perpetual licence get screwed in every way imaginable, so we bought subscriptions due to having no other viable choice. Enjoying your MSA price? fuck you. Enjoying the cinversity plugins and tutorials? fuck you. Enjoying having the latest version? fuck you. Want a warning about R25 being the last perpetual so you can make an informed financial decision? Fuck you.

Maybe we can finde the right path again. This discussion is not about subscription vs. perpetual but about what benefits the users have from being denied the choice between subscription and perpetual. And I really would like to hear arguments against choice and then I would like to compare quantity and weight of these arguments against the arguments for choice. I have heard quite some convincing arguments why the customers should have choice, but I really have not yet heard a lot of arguments that prove, that the user is better of with being denied the choice between subscription and perpetual.

Try this one... Pebbles CBR 02.c4d Here, just 2 basic pebble shapes (one based on a cube (but smoothed), another a deformed hexasphere) in a cloner, in object mode over a landscape, with random scaling and rotation applied via Random Effector, then the whole lot deformed by a World-space noise-driven displacer. We are using multi-instances in cloner, so no scene slow-down, even with 400, 000 pebbles. CBR

Back from the dead. Toon shader testing in Corona.

In the interests of trying to call balls and strikes fairly and without emotion, I do have to have to say that the changes made to C4D since R25 were good ones. Props to Maxon. Unfortunately, there was just not enough in R25 to warrant me upgrading from R23. I made a decision at that point, to get off the perpetual upgrade train and stay with R23. But I made that decision with the sound expectation that perpetuals were going to go away SOMEDAY. So why continue to spend that $950/year if you felt that at some point they would no longer be offered? Do I want perpetual licenses? Yes, of course. But here is the insight that made me really re-think that position: At some point after I stop upgrading, that "perpetual" license has its own expiration date. It will not last forever because its life is determined by your computer hardware and OS. In the future, will R25 run on Windows 16? Not sure. Can it run on the latest CPU's you buy in 2029 as their instruction sets do change over time? Or the GPU's? Today, yes. 7 years from now - who knows. To prove this to yourself pull up your oldest version of C4D, reinstall it and let me know how you enjoy the experience (assuming it still runs). And by old, I mean older than R15. Yes, it may run, but the viewport could be glitchy. Certain commands could generate errors with the C++ executables....all sorts of issues. Plus, you will hate the rendering on those old versions. That is the allure of CG. The rendering just keeps getting better. At some point, R25's AR rendering is just going to look like crap (and that point is probably already here when you look at RS and Octane). Will the latest version of Octane still run on R25 in 7 years? Maybe not. So at some point you are going to look at your perpetual license that you paid extra for and go "ugh.... why do I keep this around" -- which by default makes it lose its "perpetual" status from your perspective. If you are not using it, it is not perpetual because it has NO PERPETUAL VALUE TO YOU. And isn't the true purpose of software! To provide you value? If you are not using it, it is not perpetual because you have determined it has no value....it's just eating up hard-drive space. You may be able to limp along for maybe the next 7 to 10 years with R25, but ultimately it will either be incompatible to your hardware or the user experience and rendering capability will dissuade you from using it. Understanding that end-state, I made the decision to walk away from C4D with R23 as I was not enamored yet with subscriptions. R25 did not help that opinion but R26 and R2023 have since changed that perspective. So, I saved myself $950 by avoiding R25. I will also save myself ($950 - $720) $230 should I decide to get a one-year subscription. Still haven't made that decision yet, but time is on my side. No deadlines like the MSA. Want it? Not want it? I can make that decision now or 6 years from now without any financial impact. If the perpetual train still existed, those choices would have had a financial impact. And if I do decide to dip my toe back in the latest version of C4D with a subscription, I can get it for a year or a month - my choice. Again, just trying to set aside the emotional connection we have to software that we all loved at one time or still love today and looking at it from a more pragmatic. clear-eyed perspective. Dave

Shrug. Happy to see this happening as the handful of people who were clinging to perpetual now have a clear reason to jump across to whichever alternate DLC will make them happy, presumably Blender or Houdini, and people who are dissatisfied with Maxon will have a reasonably clear way forward to Get Over It, unless they're like that twit at CG Talk who was permanently damaged by Maxon and whatever else happened in his life. C4D 2023 shows good signs of their dev cycle finally picking up speed too.

I don't care for renderings – I just want to see the viewport buuUUURRRRrrn! (I love Embergen 😊)