3D-Pangel

Is your friend Andrew Price (aka Blender Guru). His donut tutorial is a very famous beginners tutorial for Blender newbies. Right up there with 3D Kiwi's little blue airplane tutorial (okay...as it has been some time and we have many new members, is there anyone out there who has never heard of the Little Blue airplane tutorial?). Very cool Igor. I can see why once you have successfully made that transition, you can see the whole new world that Houdini opens up to you. Dave

So is the "different way of thinking" that makes Houdini click the same "different way of thinking" that you need to make C4D nodes click? My biggest struggle with nodes is remembering the nodes and their capabilities. I can conceptualize the order of operations and I can remember/visualize from the training what is possible from the nodes --- I just can't remember the damn name of the node. Does Houdini have a context sensitive help feature? Click on a port and based on its data type a list of possible nodes appear for you to select from (or better yet hover over the node name in the list and a description appears). If there was ever an application for machine learning, it would be here where the AI reads the node list and from that has some idea of what you want to do (eg. "ahh...some polygons have been selected and their local axis has been shifted to their extent position value in the Y-axis. He/she must want to do a rotation, or twist, or bend. I will now show all those nodes"). Hey....after 30 years, they should be working on that! 🙂 I mean what was the breakthrough "aha" moment that knocked down the Houdini learning barrier and could that same lesson learned be applied to C4D nodes? Dave

Has anyone played with the greeble capsule? I would love to see what people can do with that. Also, what do professional modelers think of capsules? When you strive for perfection in your edge loops, topological flow, no complex poles and nothing but quads, then do the capsules create geometry that is up to your standards or do they require such heavy editing that you forego the non-destructive workflow and just start from the beginning. I saw Chris Schmidt run through capsules and it was impressive but it was creating some geometry that I think would make a perfectionist cringe (particularly when you are selectively and/or randomly performing inner extrudes and edge flow gets a little disturbed). That is why I wonder if the greeble modifier is a useful tool to those that strive for perfect meshes. Dave

I have two questions: 1) Considering that perpetual license holders only get three months of technical support, my hope is that missing icons are viewed differently and that no matter how long it takes them to get everything with the UI in order, Maxon releases a patch that brings everyone's R25 UI up to snuff. I would not want to upgrade to R25 and the icon patch comes out 4 months after my purchase date leaving me to wait until R27 to get my missing icons. 2) From anyone's past experience, how long does a person have to update from R23 to R25? Does the standard yearly perpetual upgrade cost of around $950 hold true until R27 is announced or does it increase to the two year price (eg. the cost to upgrade from R23 to R27) once S26 in announced? I could call Maxon, but just thought some perpetual license holders out there may have actual experience with upgrading after the SXX version was announced? Personally, I would want to wait and see what is in S26 before I consider staying current or not. There. Hopefully we can now get back to a more meaningful discussion. Dave

Excellent post. If I may through a couple of additional thoughts out there as well. We tend to consider the CEO of any company whose policies we disagree with as the architect of those changes and the person to be held accountable. That may very well be true for Maxon, but consider this: Subscriptions are part of the growing business trend known as "SaaS" - or software as a service. SaaS was making its way into major platforms long before McGavran joined Maxon. Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco (all the top software companies in the world) were adopting SaaS platforms. Now, I have always been skeptical of the story that the three Maxon founders all decided to retire at the exact same time in 2018. Sorry...but rarely do three people all agree on anything as significant as when to retire. Remember, their identities and personal relevance were wrapped up in Maxon. It defined them. Leaving a company you founded would be a huge decision for any one person to voluntarily make - let alone three people to deciding to give it up all at the same time. Therefore, I suspect that it was not their decision to retire. Everyone has a boss and their boss was someone at Nemetshek. So I propose this is what actually happened: Their boss wanted to implement SaaS with Maxon and the three founders rejected it. Therefore, they were replaced. McGavran was the perfect choice to bring into Maxon to fulfill this Nemetschek objective - that is what he was hired to do. Therefore we blame McGavran but in reality it may not actually have been his idea -- it may have been someone at Nemetschek. Now, could MacGavran have done it differently? Could he have had more empathy for the users and not tried to force his customers to subscription by taking away services from perpetual license holders and charging them far more? Could he have adopted a more equitable rent-to-own model to keep everyone happy? Absolutely! So that level of condemnation is on him. But I am pretty sure subscriptions were not his idea -- but how he implemented them was his decision. If he had empathy, then he would realize that no one likes to be forced. For some, being forced brings out a strong desire to fight back. That is what you are seeing on the forums. They are not "crazy"! They are not "on something". They do not "need medication". Rather, they are standing up for themselves as best as they can and not willing to go down without a fight. That is the beauty of living in a free society and I applaud the Core4D moderators for allowing everyone (mad, happy, Blender, Houdini, or C4D) that freedom. Now, as I said, everyone has a boss. MacGavran is not immune to his decisions. His bosses at Nemetsheck will see to that. This is where I think we are with the whole move to subscriptions. I recall a business article on Adobe's move to subscriptions where they said that it took up to 5 years to show more profitability with subscriptions than what they enjoyed before subscriptions were introduced. In fact, that article pointed out that there was a two year decline in business after subscriptions were introduced. As to be expected, they lost customers who did not like that model. But the turn-around started around the 2 year mark. Now the size of the Adobe business is vastly bigger than Maxon's but lets say that (all things being equal) you loose business in the first two years after subscriptions have been introduced. After all, customer reaction is the same everywhere and has nothing to do with the size of the business so that two year decline could still apply to Maxon. But hopefully, business picks up from that low point to greater profitability. That two year low point for Maxon is now as they introduced subscriptions in September, 2019. And what happens at that two year low point that is supposed to be the start of a turn-around? They release R25. The most criticized release in all of Maxon history. No matter what the truly faithful Maxon acolyte's have to say, R25 was controversial for all the wrong reasons. Not a good way to start a turn around and therefore something that probably has Nemetsheck's attention as it represents risk to the turn around to greater profitability. As I said, everyone has a boss. Dave

Actually it is more basic than that. True there are those advantages, but they would not warrant the investments made in the server architecture. The real reason is this (and again I point to hundreds of other companies as examples and am NOT just saying this applies to Maxon): Companies love the recurring revenue that subscriptions provide because their investors love it. It boosts their stock price and makes everyone's bonuses (especially the exec's) nice an fat. To do anything else (like a rent-to-own model) makes it easier for people to opt out of a subscription model. That is a threat they don't want and why they push subscriptions so hard. If you don't believe me, read this Now, as we all believe that Maxon is different than these big corporations, then maybe they will be immune from the seductive lure of larger profits, have confidence in the loyalty of their customers (because their product are such a joy to use) and offer a rent-to-own model - if for no other reason because they care! Only time will tell. Dave

You are right of course and someone did ask why are subscriptions being pushed so hard. I also explained that as well and showed how companies like Adobe use subscriptions to their advantage. Will Maxon behave the same way? Jury is still out on that. Maybe in time, I will see that Maxon will not become an Adobe -- Comments from Rick help with that assessment. Now, in order for me to properly frame your suggestion to "just move on", I need to understand where you sit in all this....especially as your forum avatar shows that you are still using R13. If true, you haven't moved on to anything else for quite some time. "Moving on" after 14 years of investment is not an easy thing to do -- especially as a hobbyist. Being forced to "move on" is in even worse....kind of a big stick in your eye (the cleanest analogy I could think of) after 14 years of being a loyal customer. Ideally, I want to keep using C4D for the next 14 years. In my perfect world there would be a rent-to-own option. Everybody wins in that model. Dave

Ditto....

I agree. My discontent is not with the software or the development community. It never has been and I have gone out of my way to make that distinction. My discontent is how perpetual license holders are treated. And the response has been quite clear: Subscription license holders will ALWAYS get more benefits than perpetual license holders. That is the penalty for wanting to be able to use your software without having to pay for it over and over again. Now, I have been drawing heavily on the Adobe and Autodesk model in my arguments. I have even said that this is evidence of what could happen to subscription holders. No direct statements such as "This is what Maxon will do to you in the future --- so watch out!" were made but rather just showing what could happen based on the evidence to date from other companies. In fact, in all those discussions, I never mention Maxon. So as careful as those statements have been made, some assume it is bias against Maxon. Now what I find is interesting is this: Those who are making those comments about bias prove, by their own statements or license numbers (eg. R24), that they are NOT perpetual license holders. So of course they can sit back and claim bias because they are not feeling the pinch that perpetual license holders feel. Finally those who assume those are biased arguments against Maxon have failed in one area: providing evidence in their arguments that Maxon would NEVER behave like Adobe. I would love to hear those assurances because how perpetual license holders have been treated does not support that claim. So please, put my mind at rest: convince me that there will be no more lackluster releases. Convince me that perpetual license holders will no longer have services taken away from them (actually --- what more can we lose?). Convince me that Maxon wants the perpetual license holder to also have a rich and rewarding experience with C4D by considering rent-to-own models or other options that have been discussed. Convince me that Maxon wishes to pursue and grow a positive and long term relationship with the perpetual license holder. Show me that evidence by ACTION (as actions speak louder than words) and I will be the first to shout out that I was wrong about everything. In the absence of that evidence, simply saying we are biased is word salad and miss-direction (hmm....interesting cultural parallels going on here). So be honest. Put in the real work to make a positive argument based on data to make your case. Dave

My brother has his PhD in tax law and developed the first Master's in Taxation degree program in the US. When Harvard wanted a similar program, he was the one who audited their curriculum as part of their accreditation program. Needless to say, he is a good guy to have in the family (master carpenter too!). We do talk often and pretty much about everything. Just a great source of knowledge. Funny story: He wrote a research paper on how much the US government would save on granting tax amnesty (pay what you owe without penalty or prosecution). The commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service met with him to discuss his findings as the savings were significant. Afterwards, he was audited --- probably as a test for bias to insure that his research was truthful and accurate. Well, they sent in a young auditor who was quite arrogant (as most tax auditors can be). According to my brother, he then proceeded to school her for 40 minutes on tax law. In telling the story, he stopped at this point and put his head down. I asked what was wrong. He said "I guess I schooled her too much". "Why?" I responded. "I made her cry", he said. He made the tax auditor cry!!! The man is my hero! Dave

Apart from the C4D's development roadmap (and - to be fair to Rick and the developers - an argument could be made for the value of workflow as being equal to the value of tool development), what I would love to hear is a frank and honest discussion regarding whether or not the perpetual license holder factors into Maxon's long term revenue strategy. To be brutally frank, I believe it does not. Our business just does not matter to Maxon -- in fact, we are a bit of an annoyance. I would also say that belief is shared by a majority of its users. I come to that conclusion based upon how often that opinion is communicated, supported, and echoed in this forum's posts. So, as a company that listens, is it safe to say that Maxon is also aware of that perception? I would think so. So the big question then is this: Does Maxon care about the damaged relationship that exists with perpetual license owners? Again, I submit it does not. Proof of this is in Ricks last post: "we're in a position of wanting to give you consistent value as part of your subscription and an ever-growing asset library is one great thing we can give subscribers in addition to frequent feature upgrades." I guess concerns over giving consistent value to perpetual license holders does not exist. Every action by Maxon over the past two years to the perpetual license holders is moving in the opposite direction to the favoritism they are giving subscription customers. Honestly, it feels like coercion and that is what creates the friction. So, if Maxon is listening and does care about the perpetual license holder, then we can get into a good conversation about how to win back our good graces. To start the conversation going, I propose two ways: the most desired being a rent-to-own model. The second choice is listed below for those that are interested. Now, as stated before, I don't think Maxon does care so I do NOT expect an answer or a conversation. I only expect silence. But please understand that silence also provides its own answer as well. Dave One other option for Maxon if they do care about perpetual license owners: A reason for treating perpetual license holders differently than subscription license holders was blamed on Enron. In essence saying that SOX compliance rules (or Sarbanes-Oxley legislation passed in the US in 2002) and similar global licensing rules prevent Maxon from doing more for perpetual license holders. Well, all that is needed to support SOX compliance (as well as similar global laws) is to establish financial accounting records that are readily verifiable with traceable source data. So relative to giving back perpetual license holders their lost benefits, all that is needed is to create a new subscription product that just includes, technical support, Cineversity and Library Access and charge a deeply discounted price to get around those nasty accounting rules. Or you could discount the perpetual license cost by the amount you want to charge for extending technical support, Cineversity and library access for the perpetual license holder. Now both perpetual and subscription holders are treated almost equally -- the difference that subscription customers get mid year upgrades. Perpetual license holders also can forego all those goodies (Cineversity, libraries, tech support) if they so desire and thereby reduce the sting of paying 32% more than everybody else --- a great option in years where they feel the newest version does not warrant the full $950 USD upgrade price but they still want to stay current. And please do NOT throw the other argument about "the work to upgrade the license server for this new product is cost prohibitive". Please! It feels like Maxon has been putting more development effort into the license server than C4D over the past two years. Now, that is a cheap shot but you get my point -- the resources to upgrade the server are in place and I would imagine with all the work put into Maxon One, the ability to add new products just got a lot easier (I mean, that should be the whole point of Maxon One? Shouldn't it?).

Is now a good time to bring up Rent to Own? Honestly, if there was a program that said "after X consecutive years of subscription, you will be entitled to get the next release as a perpetual license for a nominal additional fee over the subscription price" I would say that is a win-win for everyone and all my arguments go away. Dave

Rick, If you will notice, I rarely make specific conclusions regarding what the development community is doing -- especially at Maxon. I instead focus on the business and market forces which subscriptions create and the decisions those forces drive other companies like Adobe, Autodesk, etc to make. Remember that you yourself said that rather than wait for more to be added to R25 before it was released, the decision was made to get the tools already developed into users hands. Well, that logic really benefits subscribers more so than perpetual license holders. So you can see how subscriptions change and/or modify the decision making process and that is what I am calling out. Subscriptions change how decisions are made -- decisions that may even be out of your control -- which are not always advantageous to perpetual license holders. I know you work hard at Maxon along with the entire development community. I mean if that were not the case, we would not care what Maxon did with C4D -- but C4D is awesome based on your hard work and that is why we care. But please factor in the perpetual license holder into your day to day planning. We are slowly being squeezed out by Maxon from having any relevance at all. We don't get libraries, we don't get Cineversity, we don't get more than 3 months of technical support and now we are losing access to our executables. And we pay 32% more then everyone else for this type of treatment! These are not your decisions but they all add up to being pretty hard to take. I have empathy for your position and respect the contributions you and the rest of the developers make on a daily basis in growing C4D. All I ask is that you have the same empathy for the perpetual license holder and respect for our concerns with the direction of C4D given what we have seen subscriptions are doing to other platforms. The actions taken by Maxon against perpetual license holders do nothing to alleviate any of these concerns and you need to understand and respect that. With all due respect, Dave

Apologies to everyone for beating an old drum, but let me explain again why hobbyists hate subscriptions more than professionals. And it all boils down to 2 points so it should not be that hard for anyone to grasp. Point 1) The biggest downside of subscriptions is that it provides a source of locked in revenue for the software company. You stop subscribing, you lose access to your work -- so you keep subscribing to keep working. That is why you are locked in revenue. Point 2) As a hobbyist I have a strong desire to continue to have access to my work. That connection is not as strong for professionals because their connection to their work ends as soon as they get paid. Should the client want to change it in the future, they get paid again. So it is easy for them to jump in and out of a subscription model because they loose nothing. But hobbyists want to revisit what they have done in the past in case they learn something new that will make that scene better. Personally speaking...everything I do is a WIP as I am always reworking it. That is part of the fun and learning process. So here is why those two points make hobbyists unwilling to accept subscriptions. Point 1) If companies have a big percentage of their revenue locked in, there is less pressure to compete. Software companies compete on updating features, fixing bugs, providing new features, staying relevant in the marketplace. History has shown (especially with Adobe, 3DS Max and now R25) that companies are less concerned about what negative reactions they could receive from lackluster releases. Now, this behavior will NOT increase market share but for mature programs in a mature industry, there really is not that much NEW market to grab - or certainly not enough to warrant the investments required to improve the program to capture that market. But every company CEO still needs to increase profit year-over-year (his/her bonus depends on it) and therefore the best way to do that is to cut back on expenses. Unfortunately, in the software world their biggest expense is people. This all adds up to the conclusion that NOT only does subscriptions remove companies from the need to compete on features, it supports the means by which companies can layoff developers and increase profits. Major point being: Do not be surprised by lackluster updates once a company adopts a subscription model. Point 2) So eventually, based on the reasoning in Point 1, there is a good chance that each new release within a subscription model will fail to meet the user's needs in one way or another. Bugs persist and desired features get ignored. Pretty soon all users realize that they are just renting the software to use it -- paying over and over again with no noticeable improvements. They are not even renting to own. For professionals, that may not be a big deal because their connection to the software is job based. But remember that hobbyists have a connection to their work so if they are fed up with just renting and exit the subscription model, they loose everything or have to go through the additional work of exporting and importing in the painful switch to a new platform. That is why we like perpetual licenses -- if the update is not worth our money, we don't buy it and keep going. Nothing is lost. Unfortunately, Maxon is even making holding onto perpetual licenses harder given that they are removing access to the executables for past versions so now our life with C4D is restricted to our hardware. Is it just me, or do others feel that the old pre-subscription and pre license server model offered us more freedoms with our purchased software? And are those freedoms slowing being removed each year? Dave Oh....and if you love freedom the way I do, then I cannot say enough good things about the Blender training in this course --- now on SALE again:

As DaveW pointed out, maybe you missed this paragraph in the CGChannle article: So CGChannel got their reporting correct as their statement aligns to the new release announcements and how the perpetual license page at the Maxon site only points to the previous versions. The only explanation could be that the perpetual license page is out-of-date - which can happen during new product releases. Therefore, to be fair, I yield the floor to you for an accurate explanation as to whether or not perpetual licensing for the "current" versions of these products are still available. Dave

The comment "No plans to drop perpetual licenses of Cinema 4D ‘while there is enough demand’ is extremely ominous given the poor reception of R25. Essentially it is a dog whistle threat to all perpetual license holders: "Purchase this weak release or we will take away all perpetual licenses forever. As your Maxon overlords you must take what we give you to continue to earn our good graces." Now is it bonkers for me to read an "Obey or else" motive behind these comments? That is an honest question as I am concerned. But if I am NOT going bonkers, then it is another example of what I have said time and time again: Subscriptions capture a revenue base (continue to subscribe or lose all access) and as such there is a reduced need to compete on features. R25, whether more was planned or not, showed that their reasoning behind its release in its lean state did not for one moment take into account any competitive reaction. They simply did not care whether or not users viewed this release as relevant and/or worthy of their dollars because they felt immune to any negative reactions. Well...it seems that the universal disdain for what is in R25 shows that they are in fact not immune to the impact of a poor release. But rather than up their game to do better, as any company behaving in a normal competitive market would do, they have instead decided to threaten us: Buy what we give you or it goes all away. Honestly, if Maxon is playing these types of games now, should we be confident about future releases should there ONLY be subscriptions? I for one will be looking at Blender 3.0 release a lot more closely Dave

OMG! I love a good analogy that perfectly highlights a person's position on an argument...and that was it! Dave

I think Octane still offers a perpetual license. Is that one of the slim choices? True, it is unbiased and may not be a fast as Redshift simply because it is unbiased, but based on what I hear, users are very happy with it. Now, I was able to take advantage of the pre August 30th Redshift promotion to extend my maintenance to 6/2023 which means I still get perpetual licenses for each release until that date. By then, the whole world could be subscription (you never know). I just hope for a perpetual Redshift-RT for Blender by that time as that will be a powerful combination and provide me many options - just in case the whole world does go subscription. Dave

If I may...and this is all based on giving every courtesy to Maxon that they are NOT out to milk us dry like those bloodsucking leeches at Adobe. Not all development cycles are 1 year or 6 months. Major feature development can take longer than that. R26 development did NOT start on 9/16 once R25 was announced. So there is an overall roadmap and I would imagine it spans a maximum of 5 years as most corporations are not willing to invest further out than that (any more is risky because markets change). So, I really don't think Rick or anyone else at Maxon said "Yes. Let's make the UI the big change in R25 along with three other features" and made a conscious choice way back in the planning phase that was all there was going to be in R25. Pretty confident that more was planned for R25 but something happened. Developers ran into unforeseen issues, things were unstable, quality of those planned features was sub-standard, etc...etc...etc. The decision was therefore made to not include them in this release cycle. That is why I asked Rick "what happened last year". But that does NOT mean they will not appear in the next release. So R26 will be a little fatter to make up for the thinness of R25 as they get back on track with their development schedule....or so I hope. Where I fault Maxon is that they decided to release R25 rather than wait for all the planned features to be ready. Their reasoning for doing so: "We wanted to get these features into your hands as fast as possible". That is reasoning that really only benefit subscribers. It does NOT serve the perpetual license holder. It appeases the subscriber because they do get the new features earlier with no additional cash outlay. The perpetual license holder is left with "I am paying $950 for this?" type of feeling and at the same time placing a HUGE bet that everything will actually catch up by the time R27 is released so that the next time they shell out $950 they are getting a massive update that makes up for everything. Sorry...when you are paying 32% more than a subscriber, you want to see the goods up front. That is why I kept saying "Why did you release R25 as is? This makes no sense" because all they did was play into the Adobe fear that they really don't care about keeping C4D relevant and really are just milking a captive audience while giving very little in return. That is the REAL downside of subscriptions (you are paying just to use rather than paying to get better features) and R25 did nothing to dispel that fear. It was a bad move. Now, someone mentioned that Maxon was in debt. Not surprising given all their acquisitions. Therefore I strongly urge ALL perpetual license holders NOT to upgrade to R25 until you see what is in R26. You have until R27 is announced to make that decision without incurring additional costs because you are not eligible for R26 anyway....therefore wait. Does R26 catch up to where R25 should have been or is Maxon really just milking us dry. The only benefit to perpetual licenses is that (unlike the old maintenance programs), time is on your side AFTER the next release has been announced. If Maxon is hurting for cash, you also send them a signal by waiting: Sorry....you need to do better before you see my cash. Dave

I appreciate it. You are top shelf in my book too. I also looked at your web-site. Mad skills. Really outstanding. Dave

So you had me convinced of your sincerity up until that last sentence. Exactly when did you stop trying to be dismissive? Look, in light of R25 not being the most well received release and hearing about organizational changes and problems with collaboration does point out valid reasons for concern. Per Anders did leave this year too as well...so there are connections that could be made and all of that is alarming to someone who has invested heavily in C4D and sincerely wishes to continue doing so in the future. But when I connect all those dots together, I think there are valid concerns over that future. And to be fair, I did ask if I was reading too much into it....but maybe you missed that part. But it appears by your own comments that you are not that happy with C4D but are content to not say anything about until you are called out. That is fine. We all have different thresholds. But don't criticize others for being "bonkers" or tin-foil hat conspirators when they have concerns but then lecture us about how you like to be constructive while at the same time raising the exact same concerns with C4D that the rest of us have. Nevertheless, you won't hear me calling you bonkers. To hopefully end this thread on a positive note: I would like applaud Rick for setting the score straight...and continuing to do it in a very respectful and polite manner. He is top shelf in my book and I sincerely appreciate his participation in this forum and his patience...especially with me. Just remember that it all comes from a common desire to keep C4D meaningful and relevant for every user as time goes on. Dave

Interesting....that would explain a great many things. But the jewel in the Maxon crown is MoGraph. I know that every organization has to plan that anyone can be replaced, but there are just some key people you need to keep and Per was one of them. I mean, imagine if he went to Blender as I do understand that some motion graphics capability either already exists in the program or is being developed. That would be game over for Maxon because where else can C4D hang its hat as "best in breed" other than MoGraph? Hey, you want to charge top dollar you better be top dog in something (and it can NOT only be in the UI --- comfy seats are nice but ultimately you want your luxury car to have a good engine). Dave

Rick, Care to elaborate? The only organizational change I know of is Per Anders leaving...which was a bit of a shock. That is huge loss to Maxon to lose the person who accepted the Technical Achievement Oscar in 2020 for MoGraph. I mean he put Maxon on the map (IMHO) with MoGraph. When a person is responsible for that type of technical product contribution in my company they make him a "Fellow" which is VP level. You really want to hold onto your "Maxon Fellows". Losing them is like when Apple fired Steve Jobs in 1985 and we all know what happened to Apple between then and when he came back. It was a dark period marked by lack of innovation and dwindling sales (though I wish I had bought the stock for $3/share). So what is going on? Just trying to think what type of organizational changes impact collaboration as you say it is "tricky to replace those in-person conversations". That can only "really" happen when key people leave. Covid has an impact, but you can still call people up and read their body language via a Zoom or Web-Ex call. So Is there any more regrettable attrition going on and/or how is the new organizational structure impacting collaboration? Overall, no matter what the cause, that is not good. Am I reading too much into this? Dave

Overall...I agree with the end result - especially the new features that are not icon or location dependent such as hot corners, tabs, etc. I just think they could have done a few things to make the transition an easier one. For example, you can revert back to the originally layout but you cannot revert back to the original icons. People speak of muscle memory but that is easily solved with the old layouts and ONLY for those commands that are in that old layout. What I would have preferred is the ability to switch back to the old icons just to re-orient yourself to the layout first and then (when you are ready) re-orient yourself to the new icons. Even when muscle memory kicks in, if the icon is completely different you have to pause for a minute, hover over the icon a bit, see the name come up and then once you have confirmed this is the command you want, you proceed. That actually slows you down more than you may think. The fastest way (IMHO) to learn the new UI is to create your own layout. Redo everything and rebuild it how you want it to work. The pedantic action of finding and placing each icon where you want it both teaches you where it will be located and what it looks like. People are saying that it takes about a week of use to become familiar with it but I think re-building your custom layout will get you there much faster (hours not days). Dave

Personally I think it is the person who complains about the complainers complaining about the complainers complaining about the complainers. 😁 Ouch! Look, CG is not a simple thing to get into. It takes time, money, practice, patience, more money, more practice, etc. It also is NOT a skill that is 100% transferrable from one program to another. True, the techniques are transferrable but the execution is 100% dependent on the software and it is learning how to execute with that software where most of the time, money and practice goes. Once you get to a point of proficiency with the software where you are so immersed into the workflow that the interface melts away, then you have "arrived"! It just doesn't get any better than that. You just don't want to give that up like an old pair of shoes simply because it takes so much effort to get to that point. It is not that easy...especially for the hobbyist who has less time to learn simply because they have a different day job. So, with that said, I think it is valid for people to ask simple questions like "why did you change the interface when no one asked you to?" or "why was the interface a higher priority than this new modeling feature that would really improve my proficiency and help my workflow". They may sound like they are complaining, and some may actually be complaining, but from the majority I hear frustration and loss....especially with comments from hobbyists with perpetual licenses regarding how Maxon is making it increasingly difficult to financially continue with the software. Yeah... real sweat, blood and tears get invested into becoming proficient with each and every individual program. That is a cold hard fact for many of us. When that sacrifice gets threatened, then people speak up for themselves. That is natural. To some, the protection of that sacrifice is a complaint. Not me. I see what is behind it because I have made those same sacrifices. I really don't care if some on the forum cannot make that distinction....but I desperately hope that Maxon can. Dave