Falstaff

The Blender YouTube channel has released some really great presentations from the 2022 Blender Conference. If you click on the YouTube link at the bottom of the video below, you'll see a playlist on the right of the screen. They have provided a lot of information on Grease Pencil and the animation tools, as well as many other topics.

Bullshit Retarded I’m guessing… I’m assuming… Grumpy Moody Troll-like whining Emit the same familiar smell Petulant Sarcastic whinging Potshots Troll tax Passive aggressive whinging Narky Dickhead Talk about a bumpy last few pages...

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.

This is the first tutorial I've posted to my YouTube channel (and the first one I've ever created). I wanted to develop a way to make an animated cartoon flame in Blender. This process uses Eevee, metaballs, and the particle system. I mainly work in Toon Boom Harmony for 2D animation, but I wanted to learn how to use Blender assets to enhance those animations. Hope this is helpful. Thanks!

If I was still using C4D, EJ's video would show me how to achieve the exact look I want. 🙂

I think we are discussing two different topics, and then (hopefully) this will be my last comment on the matter. I'm trying to learn to use metaballs in Blender to create an animated 2D flame for a torch, and I think I'm just procrastinating. My issue has nothing to do with C4D transitioning to subs. After that happened, I moved to Blender. Simple as that. If I did any whining about that, it was for a very short time period and I moved on. If that is their pricing model, and they are happy with it and users and happy with it, I don't see the problem. People should make a choice and let it go. Seriously, I agree, it has been years. My issue is with the leader of a large corporation making a joke at the expense of the small guy/team having financial troubles just so he can say "Hah. Told you so. Who needs subscriptions now?" In my opinion (and this is just my opinion - it doesn't have to be anyone else's opinion and it doesn't have to be debated because there is no right or wrong perspective - to each their own), its petty, especially since Maxon doesn't have their own forum and this forum gives them so much free exposure. This site may welcome all software discussions, but it is still dominated by C4D users. Even if he felt that way, be a bigger person and just don't say it. And, again, this is just based on my perspective. Igor seems cool with it, so I guess that is all that should matter.

I've moved on from that incident. At this point, I'm just a little surprised at the hypocrisy. Maybe you don't realize you are doing it, but are telling people they shouldn't misinterpret something, while you are constantly interpreting other people's comments and telling them they can't take joke or they are overthinking it. Sure, you may do it with a pleasant tone, but its still condescending when you do. I said it was in bad taste. Apparently my saying that is the same as calling it a war crime. Quite the leap. Also, thanks for giving me permission to move on. I appreciate it.

Something funny happened to me today. Someone pays me to live in my house. I only have to manage it. When I left it today, I walked down the street and ran into one of my neighbors. He told me he was worried that he might get evicted if he couldn't figure out a way to make more money. I made a joke about his situation, laughed in his face, and kept walking. It was hilarious. All of the other neighbors were standing there to hear it. Hopefully, they can take a joke at his expense, but probably not. There was one guy there who defended me, even though he loves spending time at the neighbor's house, so I appreciate him. He gets it.

No harm in agreeing to disagree. I think the offense is to the community and the situation, not Igor, but that is for each person to decide. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have veered the thread off topic. Hopefully, my other comments helped rectify that a bit.

I'm not typically one to engage, but I did want to make a few points. To survive, Core4D needs money and ideas to increase revenue. In response to that, a CEO cracks a joke, malicious or not. Commenting on the inappropriateness of that response is considered whining. As someone mentioned to me but not to the CEO, maybe he should have said something "more productive to address the issue the thread presents." I appreciate that you are an optimist, but what about his response says "Hey, I know we already pulled funding to help support the forum, and, based on that action, one might believe that we don't care about the forum, but I will probably give you 5 euros every six months and I will certainly spend hours of my time writing blog posts for you when my company is already receiving exposure on your site for free. Also, my company has a rule of never saying anything about our plans, but I'm sure I can come up with some engaging topics." I've directly worked with a lot of CEOs. I can't say they are all alike, but most of them aren't going to be creating blog posts for a forum their company doesn't own, especially one they've already defunded. Also, I don't think saying, "hey, pay a membership to our site, a CEO visits every now and then" is going to increase user traffic. I won't even begin to comment on dropping Scott Adams' name as a good example of someone to emulate. Concerning Igor showing new users around Houdini, that is a good example of a level of engagement other forums don't typically offer. Maxon doesn't even have a forum. If anyone uses Toon Boom Harmony, you should visit their official forum. It seems like a graveyard. I think there is a gap to be filled. Houdini's forum, however, is an exception. Back when I was looking into Houdini, they seemed to have a lot of engagement. Artstation is also a good example of a site to emulate. It creates a lot of engagement via portfolios, blog posts, user stores (trainings, models, prints, etc.), job listings, etc. Artstation is free at the basic level. It then offers three tiers of subscriptions with varying services. (https://www.artstation.com/subscribe) I think to increase site usage, you can't wait for users to come to you based on searches. I think there will need to be a lot of social media activity drawing users here.

I'm not certain about the benign part and this certainly doesn't seem like a thread that requires a comedian, especially as the joke relates to subscriptions, but, yes, I agree with your opinion about keeping the thread on track. I just found the comment, considering the gravity of Igor's post and who the comment was coming from, to be completely unnecessary. Even if it was meant as a joke, it was still in poor taste. Concerning the subscription and your comment about new users, I also agree. They probably won't join for a fee, especially if they can't see the value of what they are receiving. There are plenty of forums/communities behind pay walls that are successful. Let me preface what I'm about to say with "I'm not a social media expert,” so please correct me if I'm wrong. The problem with creating a successful online presence isn’t money, but time. It is time-consuming. You have to constantly be putting your brand in people’s faces, primarily via social media, in order to drive traffic to the site. Those posts or videos, since they are related to a visual medium like 3D, will require high quality imagery to entice viewers, which is time-consuming to create, but you have a lot of contributors who can provide such images, which can then convey a “Learn from us, look how good we are” message. Once users are at the site, you need to offer something of value to keep them there and pay for it. To create that value is also time-consuming. For this type of forum, it would probably be training videos and/or personal mentorships, as well as the ability to receive help whenever they need it. Sometimes, no matter how many Google searches you do, you can’t find the specific answer to your specific problem. I wonder if you should look at the site as something beyond a forum. More of an information hub. As an example, could you engage with current, talented members of the forum to create training videos that can only be seen here, similar to how some people structure their Patreon accounts? Those members would then get a paid incentive to continue creating videos, such as a percentage of membership fees (if they increase) or payment based on some other metric, while Core4D is responsible for driving the traffic to the site and hosting the content. They wouldn't need to be 4-hour tutorials that completely cover a topic. Some of the trainings on 21-Draw are only an hour. Creators are successful if the site is successful. Or, Core4D could host trainings made by creators and take a percentage, similar to Udemy or Gumroad, except Core4D has the additional benefits of a forum for support. Either way, when I was using Cinema 4D (I've since transitioned to Blender), I found a lot of areas where trainings either weren't available or didn't cover a topic as in-depth as I would have liked, especially in the rigging and animation areas, so, if you can find where gaps exist, maybe filling them will help increase the value of the site. EDIT: I guess another option would be to have, as someone mentioned, read-only capabilities to entice users, but monthly fees to access the premium tiers, again, like Patreon memberships typically have various levels. (I'm sure I'm not saying anything here that hasn't already been thought of.) EDIT 2: I'll shut up after this one. If you can demonstrate enough traffic, could you create a section for paid posts (this may already exist here - I have no idea). As an example, on Cartoon Brew, they will occasionally have paid, sponsored posts that discuss various topics, such as new software releases (ex: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/sponsored-by-reallusion/can-cartoon-animation-be-performed-by-live-humans-212014.html) As another example, (this would be hard to control), every time there is a new release for Cinema 4D, you advertise it for free via a forum post. Maybe they should be paying for that exposure. You could potentially do the same for Modo or other software. Again, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think for the site to truly expand and increase revenue, it needs to be something beyond a forum. Unfortunately, as with anything else, it takes a lot of time, and when people have full-time jobs, time is harder to come by than money, at least in my experience.

Am I the only one that finds this comment in extremely poor taste? Disclaimer: Yes, I considered not posting this comment at all because what’s the point? You can say that it is only a joke, and I shouldn’t take it so seriously, which is probably true. Disclaimer: Yes, I’m sad that I wasted my time writing this comment. Disclaimer: Yes, I may not have all the facts as they are written below, so feel free to correct me. Situation #1: One person establishes a forum because he wants to create a community around a software that he enjoys working with, and he supports it for several years; however, after realizing that the software he created the forum for is going nowhere fast, he sells the forum and transitions to a new software. The new owners want to continue supporting the community, but they do need to make it financially worth their while because in the world as it is, time is money (another sad topic for another day, which is why I should have spent my time doing something more productive), and they are on the hook for the costs - they are not part of an umbrella corporation to help finance their endeavors. Since it isn’t currently financially viable, the owners thoroughly explain why a membership fee is necessary, discuss how they tried to make the fee as minimal as possible, and explain that they hope everyone will be okay with it. Situation #2: A successful software company isn’t satisfied with their high amount of revenue, so they bring in new management to further increase that revenue. The solution is to remove a subscription service (MSA) that users have no issue with, because it allows users to keep the previous version of the software if they don’t upgrade. The company then implements a subscription service that costs more than the previous subscription (MSA) and discontinues the ability to keep previous versions if you are on the new subscription service if you don’t pay. The company also removes benefits to perpetual licenses holders in an effort to force them into the subscription service. The company doesn’t provide a good explanation as to why this new service and cost are necessary (aside from the “it’s better for users because of updates” talking point). There is a small, but unsuccessful, backlash to this decision, mainly made up of freelancers and small creators. Their dissatisfaction is voiced on the forum discussed in Situation #1. Due to this backlash, the company’s representative thinks that such a comment is absolutely not in poor taste to make because the two situations are so similar, so if you have a problem with Maxon doing everything they can to force you into a subscription with less benefits than you had before just to increase revenue, then don’t be a hypocrite. You should have the same amount of backlash to this forum asking for 10 euros a year. Am I the only one that thinks this comment is completely out of touch? Whether you like subscriptions or not, these are not the same scenarios, and I feel like it is a slap in the face of Igor after he posted such a transparent and honest post, and the decision to charge a fee doesn’t seem like it was an easy one to make. I have a feeling Maxon’s decision was very easy to make. I just feel like it shows a total lack of respect for this forum and the support they try to provide users. EDIT: I didn't write this from an angry perspective, to try to start yet another subscription discussion, or to incite an anti-Maxon response. I'm just tired of society as it currently is. Igor and the team are trying to provide value to this very small corner of the world, I assume because they really enjoy it, and they are doing their best to support it. The negatively, joking or not, as they try to do their best to support their efforts is so disheartening.

Thanks for the input. After giving it significant thought (and trying not to worry too much about the money), I decided to just build a new computer instead of upgrading the two cards. I'm currently running an 8700K, so my system is four years old now, with a processor that was released five years ago. It still runs great, but I probably wouldn't be getting everything I could out of a card upgrade with the existing processor, so I decided to upgrade to the 12900K, purchase one 3080, keep the 2080ti for now, and upgrade to another 3080 down the road or see what the next series brings. I've been using the same Cooler Master HAF case for years, so air flow with air cooling and space won't be an issue. I probably won't be doing any complex scenes, so the 24GB won't be necessary. I'm mainly looking to increase render speed for 2D and 3D animations. I use Blender for Grease Pencil, Freestyle, and 3D object animation, so the two cards will handle that. I use Toon Boom Harmony for my 2D character animation, so the CPU will handle that. I've just started a YouTube channel for animation, but my main job is as a graphic designer, so I'm telling myself I can justify the upgrade. The only downside I experienced upgrading the processor was that most of the motherboards that were available for it only supported DDR5. I planned to use my existing 64GB DDR4, but that wouldn't work, so I just ordered 32GB for now. That may be plenty. If not, I can expand later. Thanks again!

GPU prices are falling quite fast. Today, Amazon has a 3080 12 GB by Gigabyte for $1049. I was considering getting two; however, I was wondering if it would make more sense to get one 3090, assuming its price will start falling as well, strictly for GPU rendering in Blender and use my second slot for the 2080 ti I have to run my displays. Most reviews focus on the pros and cons related to gaming, which I do occasionally, but I'm really focused on the best scenario for rendering. Thanks for any opinions you have.

Thanks! Glad you like it. Obviously, I have no idea what I'm doing as far as posting. 🙂 I've been a long-time reader, but not much of a poster. Do I need to delete this topic and create a new one, or can I move it myself? I tried editing it to see if there is a way to move it, but I'm probably overlooking it. Thanks for your help! Concerning the blade effect, I took a cylinder and cut away everything but one end cap. I then UVed it, and exported that to Photoshop to paint in the following effect.