3D-Pangel

Soooo..........based on the fact that C4D's interface is so much easier to use, logically consistent, and well designed would it be fair to draw the following conclusion from your experience: A good path for the newbie is to start with C4D's subscription program, learn the basics and mechanics of 3D using C4D, and then armed with that knowledge switch over to Blender where they get better features at a cheaper price? Sooooo.....MAXON's subscription program has actually made it cheaper and easier for newbies to be successful with Blender? Wow...I never would have seen that coming. 😀 Dave

For the hobbyist who has never made a dime off of the software, annual maintenance costs do add up but the beauty of maintenance over subscription is that you are actually "owning" something at the end. With subscriptions, what I was once paying for maintenance now just gets me a right-to-use for a limited time (1 year). As you don't own it, once you stop paying it goes away. I would imagine that most digital enthusiasts like myself probably have X-Particles or some other 3rd party renderer or any other plugin that has maintenance programs (DEM earth, etc). So when C4D was pre-subscription, you were paying $720 for C4D, around $300 for the Insydium maintenance programs, probably another $300 for your favorite 3rd Party Renderer, and you could easily set aside another $100 to $200 to support any new releases or updates from your favorite plugin developers. Plus, you probably are going to want to keep your hardware up-to-date and plunk down close to $3000 every 5 to 6 years for a new computer/monitor, etc. Therefore, for a hobbyist your annual costs to keep your software and hardware current come to easily ($720+300+300+200+$600) to over $2000. Do that for 10 years and it is like owning another car (we do keep our cars for 10 years). But with software under maintenance, every year it gets up-dated. Under a maintenance program, should you want to stop paying for maintenance, you leave the program with the latest and greatest of everything because everything still works. If you did 10 years on subscriptions and decided to leave, you have to go back and hope your last perpetual license from 10 years ago still works on your current OS or GPU. For any new plugins purchased over that 10 year period, there is no guarantee that they will work with your last perpetual license. In short, you are still paying the same amount as with maintenance plans, but should you leave a subscription program after an extended period of time you may not even have an old car to go back to...you could have nothing. So going on subscriptions in year 1 does not bother me....but I think long term. What if 10 years from now and thousands of dollars later I decide I can no longer afford this hobby. I then have nothing. That is what really scares me and that is what makes me think about leaving it all now and going to Blender. Yeah I lose all that time with training, etc. but why invest long term in something I feel financially locked in to. "Stop paying and it all goes away" - that's not a good feeling to have with something that is supposed to give you enjoyment. This is a hobby to me after all. I do love C4D. It is an awesome program in more ways than one and it is on a good trajectory. But so isn't Blender and Blender does not make me feel trapped. If there is any plan in the works that says "stay on subscriptions long enough and you won't leave empty handed", I would be all in as that is a win-win situation. But I don't think MAXON is thinking as long term as I am. Dave

That's why I just watch the Monty Python videos and not read the comments. ...always happy to spend a few moments in "Spamalot!" Dave

Thank you Mr. McGavran. Can we get some numbers around point 3. Using the words "pricing similar to last year (non-MSA)" would imply that the cost for perpetual license upgrades would be the same as the non-MSA one revision upgrades which were offered in the pre-subscription era....which is around $995. I think it is $995.....not sure. I am not sure because information on perpetual license upgrade costs are not readily available on any MAXON web-site nor from any MAXON distributor for reasons which have yet to be explained. They used to be there in the pre-subscription era but for now it just says to call the MAXON sales office. If R22 is going to cost $995, this validates my concerns all along....pricing to get people out of perpetual licenses as you are hitting us with a 38% price increase ($720 to $995) since last year (which was already on top of another price increase from the year before from $650 to $720 - a whopping 53% hit in two years) . A bit painful for the hobbyist in this new COVID-19 economy. I don't mean to belabor the point, but you do have to admit, the hobbyist is getting hurt the most in all this. Dave

Agreed. My initial reaction was "Does Mr. Batista work for MAXON as he is based in Germany?" as that would be the best news I have heard in 8 months. And if it is true that MAXON is going to permanently continue the MSA program for everyone, I would issue a public apology to MAXON and ship Mr. McGavran a case of his favorite beer for all the aggravation I have caused (provided he share it with as many MAXON employees as he could). But in reality, I think it is just another example of the level of confusion out there. Dave

I honestly want to believe Srek....I seriously hope that MAXON is trying to repair the trust that was lost in their confusing roll-out of subscriptions. Unfortunately, after 8 months with nothing done to rectify the situation, you can only conclude the following: MAXON's goal is subscriptions for all. MAXON only wants to discourage perpetual licenses. Withholding Cineversity from perpetual license holders is one indication. Calling S22 a "different" piece of software to get around the agreements in everyone's R21 MSA agreement is another. Sorry...it is the license server that makes S22 different than a perpetual upgrade from R21 to R22 - not the software itself. How far MAXON wants to discourage perpetual licenses remains to be seen. That can be the only reason why there is so little communication on perpetual upgrade pricing. I don't buy that they are working through the complexities of licenses management....it has been 8 months after all. If they can release a new version of the software in that time, they can work through a license issue. Now, if you agree with these conclusions then you also have to ask how many perpetual license holders will this impact? What makes up a perpetual license holder? Would multi-seat DCC firms continue with the higher costs of maintaining a perpetual license or switch to the lower cost subscription model? Probably not. I think tax laws also favor subscriptions as they can be expensed in the current year whereas perpetual licenses, as a fixed asset to the company, need to be depreciated. Not sure but the point is that DCC companies are probably in favor of subscriptions. We have already heard the sentiments of single user perpetual license holders who use C4D to make money. Hey....to them it is just a higher expense that they can pass off to the client and that higher cost is NOT that significant. So who gets hurt? The hobbyist. Especially the hobbyist who has invested a lot in the C4D ecosystem of plugins, tutorials, texture sets and models over the years. We don't like subscriptions because we have paid dearly over the years (especially Studio owners) and should we fall on hard times, we don't want to lose everything that took us years of our time and our hard earned money to accumulate if we can't make a subscription payment. And honestly, I think MAXON knows this. But I also think that we are not that significant a portion of their user-base for MAXON to worry about. Our business does not mean that much to them. We are probably the last barrier to their long term goal of subscriptions for all anyway. If they can't get us to subscriptions, then no tears would be shed in the MAXON offices should we move to Blender. Is this all "supposition"? Absolutely! But it is based on evidence and actions taken to date. If anyone has any other rational to explain MAXON's actions, then please speak up -- provided that you have hard evidence to counter my conclusions that there are hard times ahead for the C4D hobbyist. But all is not lost for the C4D hobbyist. There is Blender. The Blender development group moves at light speed. While the UI is a bit quirky, they do have a budding object manager that is starting look very C4D-ish in its design. For me, what keeps my from deep diving into Blender is the UI. What keeps me using C4D is Insydium. I believe that over time Blender's UI will only continue to improve and probably faster than we anticipate now that the ground work has been laid down with R2.8. Now, as Insydium already has one foot in the Blender world with Cycles-4D, my deepest wish is that they are looking at the huge ground swell of support for Blender in the DCC marketplace and thinking about moving X-Particles to that platform as well. That would be a huge market for them and free's them from tying their future to the actions of MAXON. As Nigel is fond of saying: "fun times ahead". Dave

Absolutely agree with you and Jops. Read my Avatar MAXON!!!

Well said. My arguments were restricted to only perpetual vs. subscription today and your arguments point to the still painful complaint from Studio License owners who paid full price (and have supported MAXON over the years via the MSA program): now that everyone gets Studio, the value of my perpetual license has dropped significantly. This was discussed to some length in the very long thread that was first created when subscriptions were announced back in August, 2019. I don't wish to repeat those arguments here, but MAXON's way to cut a break to the Studio customer was a 2 year subscription at a reduced price. They offered it when everyone still had R20. Now R20 is pre-license server so they can't turn it off on you. As you could still keep R20 then the 2 year discount for a subscription as opposed to purchasing R21 perpetual at least had some financial merit. But to offer it again to those who just purchased R21 perpetual via the last MSA program and tell them that they loose their R21 perpetual license in the process just shows how tone deaf MAXON is to their user base. Honestly, they need to step out of their echo chamber and put themselves in our shoes. To help get you MAXON folks to exercise your "empathy" muscles a bit, allow me to offer the following analogy. Imagined some years ago you purchased a Porsche....a pretty expensive car (like C4D is a pretty expensive piece of software). As a loyal Porsche owner, every year you brought that car in for a full maintenance program at a pretty good cost where the dealer brings it up to "better than new condition". You love that program as it really protects your investment in that very expensive German car. Three months after the last upgrade, the dealer called you up and said "We have a deal especially designed for you. We will give you a big discount on a 2 year lease program. For $816 more we will convert your purchased car into our lease program. Just send us the car's title with the check so we can tear it up" Now that is not "quite" the same as MAXON's offer to me, but it is not too different either. If a car dealer made that offer to you, what would you think? Would you trust any other deals that they may offer you in the future? Probably not. In fact, you would be suspicious of every word that came out of that dealers mouth. You would you be reading the fine print on everything (like we did with the MSA agreements for R21 when S22 came out...but let's not go there because that is yet another sore subject). I want all MAXON employees who troll through this thread to think about that car example. Hopefully it helps put you into our shoes. Dave

Bjorn, Thank you for this. In light of the email that I received from MAXON USA (reference email from MAXON USA provided in previous post found here), I hope you understand that my views were based on first hand evidence. Very hard to misinterpret the "deal created exclusively for [me]" as anything but a bad deal. That deal left me with only two conclusions: 1) it was designed purely to move me from perpetual to subscription and 2) It offered me nothing in return other than converting the perpetual R21 license that I just paid $720 for 3 months earlier to a 2 year subscription deal at a savings of $624. I lose my R21 perpetual license and I lose ($720 -$624) $96. So that is pretty hard evidence for my "perception" on how MAXON "intends" to treat perpetual license holders. I appreciate your request for us to have empathy for MAXON as they try to work through their internal confusion with all the changes they are making with their licensing schemes. But at the same, in light of the evidence I have provided, MAXON needs to have empathy for the user as well. What other conclusions could I draw from that email? I know you suggested that we call the sales team in situations like these, but that email was pretty clearly written and straight forward. So why is it incumbent on the customer to call MAXON and say "Hey....you just sent me an email outlining a really crappy deal. Was that a mistake or was it really your intent to trick me out of my perpetual license while making more money for yourself in the process?" Even if it was sent to me by mistake, MAXON needs to take ownership of the perceptions they create with deals like that. MAXON needs to change the customer's perception of MAXON - that is not the customers job as you suggest. Therefore, I really do appreciate the explanation you provided but I also caution that MAXON really should develop and publish a defined strategy on how they want to proceed with perpetual license upgrades and/or conversions to "and from" subscriptions. If they are going to offer both then they need to clearly define a path for the user on how to live with both. Peddling "exclusive deals" that really are not deals does not preserve the trust we have in MAXON. Silence on this whole issue does not preserve the trust we have with MAXON. In all honesty, the explanation that license management is a complex issue for MAXON to work out begins to lose its validity with each passing day....and it has been 8 months. I know you do a tremendous job in maintaining the quality of the program (one of the unsung heroes at MAXON) but considering that you are also out here in the Cafe and asking for evidence relative to our perceptions on pricing and licenses, then I have to conclude that you are also here to listen as well. Therefore, my hope is that you take the evidence that I have provided and bring it back to MAXON with this simple message: "Users are upset. They have a right to be as we have created confusion. MAXON needs to fix this as soon as possible in a way that preserves everyone's interests and to everyone's mutual benefit" Dave

You needed to go no further than the next paragraph to get that understanding. But really, as a MAXON employee I find your comment interesting as I would have assumed by MAXON adopting the "S" in S22 to mean "subscription" would have implied that it was company decision to also imply that the "R" now means "perpetual". With "S" meaning "subscription" what is the short hand then for a perpetual license? How would you distinguish S22 from a perpetual license for the 22nd release? Dave

Okay....to be clear, the point in question in my previous post was the following: If you switch from a perpetual license to a subscription AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE, then the perpetual license is deactivated. The proof I have is this letter from MAXON USA received on January 27th (note the highlighted sections): Therefore, by conversion to subscription implies perpetual goes away. Honestly, why would I take this offer? I already paid for R21 perpetual and you are going to take that away from me by giving me two years of subscriptions. The $624 savings you are giving me doesn't even come close to the $720 for the R21 perpetual license I paid you just 3 months earlier for the last MSA program being offered. So that offer from MAXON in January is a losing offer. I was born at night....but it wasn't last night. Now, I can anticipate that your argument for S22 will be that this is an upgrade and not a "license conversion". Fair point. But honestly, all the messaging from MAXON to date (even in a fairly long thread starting last September around subscriptions) around moving from perpetual to subscription has been that this is a license conversion. Add to that the bone-headed offer you gave me in January shows that the agenda is to entice people into subscriptions at a discount in order to cancel their R21 perpetual licenses. I mean, there was nothing that made that offer enticing as S22 was not even released yet. So if you think people were going to accept a perpetual to subscription conversion in the absence of any upgrade, what makes me think you would behave any differently now when you actually do have an upgrade to offer? Finally, I think it is fair to say that pricing information on subscriptions is very straight forward and easy to find. Pricing information on perpetual license upgrades or switching from perpetual to subscription ALWAYS comes with the caveat "Please call MAXON for details" or "Pricing is not yet defined". You need to go no further than the MAXON web-site (scroll to the notes at the bottom of the pricing page) or MAXON's own FAQ page to find this evidence. In the absence of all other information, the safest way to proceed with my money is look at MAXON's past behavior and plan accordingly. Now Srek....why the challenge to my statement? Do you know something that we don't? And do you have evidence to support it? Have a nice day. Dave

Remember that starting with R21, should you "upgrade" from a down-rev'd perpetual license to the current subscription license at a discount to what the normal subscription price costs, then your "perpetual" license is de-activated. For example, if you have R21 now and "upgrade" to S22 at a discount, then R21 will no longer activate. I think (and hope) that just paying full price for S22 still keeps R21 going. So beware of that S22 discount....there is no free lunch with MAXON. R22 will be interesting. What they charge for it will determine for many what their future path is with C4D. R21 was offered at the same MSA price as R20 but I think those days are gone. Didn't MAXON announce that R21 was the last of the MSA program? So for those who like owning rather than renting, we are into the full one-rev upgrade pricing - the price you would pay if you missed renewing your MSA in time. Notice how the MAXON shops don't have a published upgrade cost for Perpetual licenses. They say to call MAXON for a price. Yeah...that keeps me up at night. I am estimating that the price to upgrade from R21 to R22 (with "R" now meaning "perpetual") will cost around $950. The advantage of the old MSA program to MAXON was that you HAD to renew it before it ran out if you wanted that reduced MSA price for the next release. Miss that date, and you pay the full upgrade cost. So that MSA program provided some revenue predictability to MAXON - just like Subscriptions. And that is a good thing for any company. The only benefit to the customer of doing away with the MSA is that you are no longer time bound to give MAXON any money when your R21 MSA period runs out. Therefore, you can sit on R21 right up until they announce R23 (around Sept, 2021). The cost for R22 upgrades will be same to you ($950) until they announce R23....so sit, wait, don't give your money to MAXON. Who knows, maybe if enough of us wait, they drop the price. That is all we can hope for and it is the only leverage we have (which I admit is not much). If so, I strongly urge all perpetual license holders to DO NOTHING when R22 get's announced. Dave

Really wondering how Embergen will work with C4D. Yes....it can output VDB files but I am not sure if VDB also includes shading information. Every tutorial I have seen requires working with the VDB files in the rendering/shading system of your applications renderer. The real strength of Emergen is the ability to get real time feedback on smoke and fire shading and quickly dial in your desired look So how does the lighting/shading information get passed to say Redshift, Octane or C4D Physical? If it doesn't work within C4D, then I am struggling to see its value. Yeah, the real time shading capabilities are nice but useless if everything needs to be redone again once you import it into C4D. Dave

Complacency and over-confidence kill more companies than a competitors plugin and/or new feature. A companies downfall starts when you take your customers for granted and just assume that their loyalty and/or size of their investment in both time and money in your program will hold them captive forever. MAXON's recent silence on this whole MSA question could indicate that they are either complacent and/or over-confident and that would be a mistake if that is how they treated their ENTIRE user base. But MAXON is not that stupid when it comes to managing their business. Unfortunately, I fear that the single user and/or hobbyist is NOT a major portion of their user base. Larger multi-license customers have probably all opted in to the subscription model to save cost. Only the single user, in particular the hobbyist, would favor the higher cost of a permanent license and we are just not a significant portion of their business. The hard truth is also a simple truth: our departure just does NOT represent a significant risk to their business. With this understanding, my hope was that MAXON would instead follow the path of other companies in these difficult times: reaching out to the individual user who has been impacted financially by COVID-19 by honoring the MSA agreements. A kind gesture to such a small portion of their business could generate a huge amount of goodwill among ALL their customers. Clearly, honoring the written agreement of the MSA is the legal thing to do per the contract --- but honoring it for the under-served MSA user who has paid a premium for a Studio license over the years is also the RIGHT thing to do - especially during these economically difficult times. While their silence on the whole MSA issue is disappointing, I still remain hopeful that ultimately MAXON will do the right thing. Dave Side point: So why do hobbyists favor permanent licenses while production houses favor subscriptions? Easy. Hobbyists probably have more of an emotional connection with the software. We want to own it. We want to always have it. We don't want it all to go away if we miss a payment. Production houses have a business relationship with the software. Does it help generate revenue at the lowest possible overall cost. If something better or cheaper comes along that they can switch over to using without putting the business at risk (due to incurring a loss of productivity, quality, time or increased cost) then they will do probably do it. For businesses, subscriptions work. So those who love the software pay more and get heard less. Those that have a purely transactional business relationship with the software pay less and get heard more. Funny how life works.

If new releases are going to be made available the same day as the shows (which is pretty outstanding), then assuming that CV training is not yet released during the shows as well, what would be interesting is to actually have MAXON developers present their tools, especially if they are pre-recorded and they don't have to travel. One, they need and deserve the public recognition. Two, new tool development is based on a workflow so it would be interesting to hear directly from them how the tool supports that workflow. Also, there have been questions asked in a presentation on a new tool for which the answer has been "Good question, we did not think of that....let me talk to the development team and I will get back to you". I would imagine that type of direct feedback in the Q&A portion to the designers would be a great opportunity for everyone. Now, I do understand that there are a number of people collaborating together on each new feature (eg. project managers, quality, UI developers, etc) so there is no such thing as "one person" responsible for something significant like the new UV tool set...but there has to be a lead designer, project owner, etc. and it is that person that would be great to see present their work. Also, we take everything for granted...especially the stability. So it would be cool if part of their presentation went into the challenges the development team faced. For example, I would imagine that the new bevel tools in R21 were extremely challenging to get right. Yep, look at that, they self-trim and mesh correctly when I go a little too far with the slider. Now why didn't they implement that feature sooner? It certainly looks easy! Well, the rules and logic to make that happen for any shape of starting polygon probably created a few headaches, indigestion and nightmares along the way (or were simply impossible with the old core). Understanding that they made it faster in R22 (you mean it was slow before?) only implies that they optimized code that was already quite complex. That just blows my mind and it would be a great story to hear. Think of it like the MAXON version of the Disney Plus series on "Imagineers". "Maxoneers" maybe? Dave

Not sure if you looking at a one time modeling tool or something that generates iterations automatically and/or can be animated. I ask because, based on your description, if this was a one-time modeling task it would be much faster to do the distribution by hand because at most you are dealing with only 16 clones (the smallest object is 1x1 into a 4x4 area). Or use MoGraph as it clones objects onto a surface. But if you need something more, then there are a number of very reasonably priced plugins that will do this for you and with a lot more creative control. Plugins such as Nitrofit (from Nitro4D) and Polygnome (https://toolspixels.be/polygnome/). Dave

I would agree that live collaborative discussions between MAXON leadership and the presenters, particularly at their level of expertise, would have very good long term consequences for EVERYONE. I am sure some good ideas for future enhancements/features come out of those discussions. It is a balancing act on which way to go (live or pre-recorded presentations) to be sure....and you certainly don't want to remove opportunities for MAXON to interact directly with the users. Dave

Really impressive presentations in a really accessible format....more so than live presentations. With the conference or roadshow "live" format, if you miss a presentation you have to wait a good bit before it is posted CV, but here it was made available for streaming much faster because they were pre-recorded. But you also get live Q&A with the artists after each presentation and EVERYONE could ask questions to the moderator via C4D Live. Usually at a live conference or roadshow, the live audience get's priority with their questions. Plus this week you got see such legends as Noseman in dramatic lighting with half his face covered by dark shadow -- Now how is that not a plus for everyone? Just kidding - we love you Noseman! 🙂 So overall, I really like how MAXON handled NAB this year and would like to see it repeated (sans the global pandemic of course). In comparisons to road shows, was this virtual format cheaper or easier to pull together? Was it more or less work for the presenters? If travel was not required, did that open up the availability of people to present? What did the presenters think? Did they prefer this format to live presentations as well? Just wondering if MAXON also viewed this as a success as well and possibly rethinking this as "the new normal" for roadshows. Dave

Wow! Very clever. I don't think the level of censorship today in the forum is as restrictive as it was in the past, so resorting to ascii code to get your point across was probably not required....but it certainly made it funnier! Dave

Not sure if that would hold up in a court of law and I hope it does not come down to that. No one needs a class action suit at this time. Just because they called it "S"22 does not make it a completely different type of software than R22. Remember that what separates the perpetual licenses from the subscription licenses has more to do with the license server and NOT the software itself. They updated the software so it should be in scope per the wording of the MSA. While I am not a lawyer, I would certainly hope that our copy-write laws are bit more stringent in their definition of unique work. If they were that flimsy to accept that S22 is a fundamentally different work than R22, then I could simply re-sell MAXON Cinema 4D as "Saxon Seenema 5D" and not get arrested for copy-write infringement. Probably not the best example, but you get my point. Other things in play is the post COVID-19 economy. While the US government is trying to help businesses keep employees with free payroll subsidies, those subsidies do NOT help out with lease costs (building, equipment, etc). So any DCC company with less than 3 months operating cash reserve is going to suffer as their building and equipment lease costs could exceed their payroll costs. Plus demand for those services drop as production companies shift schedules out and payroll subsidies will not last forever. So MAXON's customer base will be strained in the coming months. Fighting over the interpretation of service agreements with that user base will hurt not help MAXON. Stepping up an helping people impacted by COVID-19 is the better play. Goodwill always goes a long way. Dave

This post I made in the NAB2020 thread would probably be appropriate here. In short, updating a core is NOT a trivial exercise and poses great risk. The fact that MAXON was able to successfully navigate those waters, still produce yearly releases with new features and STILL BE STABLE deserves recognition. But...with that said....there have been releases along this journey that were not worth the money that Studio MSA holders were paying - if only because we paid a higher premium when the majority of the new features benefited even Prime license holders. As for me, I had faith that MAXON would ultimately "deliver the goods" and I think those days are finally upon us. The goods are coming. But what is NOT happening is any recognition of the loyalty of those users, especially the Studio users, who stuck with MAXON through this journey and dutifully paid their higher MSA subscriptions for lackluster releases. Now, when R20 was released and they raised the Studio MSA prices from $620 to $750, I was not that upset because I finally felt that the "goods were coming" and MAXON should be rewarded. But then R21 came out and quite frankly it was a gut punch. Some new tools but not many to warrant a full point release and with it the pressure to move to subscriptions with a subtle threat that perpetual licensing would cost $900+. Non Studio users now get what Studio users have been paying a premium for all those years. Look, this is an old complaint but still just as painful. We stuck with MAXON all those years, supporting them during a very risky time for the company as they rewrote the core. This could easily have gone sideways for MAXON and permanently damaged the company (just look at Lightwave and e-on), its ability to complete the rewrite and their reputation. But now that they have successfully reached the end, we are faced with higher perpetual licensing costs, a subscription model that the majority finds distasteful, and no recognition that R21 MSA holders should (by contract) be entitled to S22. So again, I love the developers, I love the quality team, the UI designers, all the technical teams. My gripe is not with them. I am just disappointed that the business team places no value on user loyalty over the years and how we helped them get to where MAXON is today. Dave

No...I think not. In case there are any doubters - here it is in black and white. I encourage everyone to do the same as I just fell in-line with the whole perpetual vs. subscription model without thinking that last years MSA agreement would still offer yearly updates. It clearly calls out "upgrades" in the wording. Dave

Moving a huge program to a new core is a massive undertaking. But what is even greater than the amount of work that is required is the risk to the company. You need to look no further than e-on or Lightwave to see how mismanaged core development can hurt a company (though to be fair, each company had other mitigating circumstances that didn't help them either: Lightwave lost its founders and e-on got acquired and its servers hacked). Now, no matter what you say or think about MAXON (and I have been their harshest critic), you have to agree that by the simple fact that they are still here, hiring developers and managing a regular release schedule, that they have managed this migration with an amazing amount of success. They laid out a map of new features tied to how the parts of the core were being implemented and then executed it with unflinching resolve. I am sure that the blow back from the user base over certain releases was hard to take and created its own sense of pressure (self included: how many times have I used the word "lackluster"?). MAXON employees on this forum saw the end-state but had to be quiet and "hope" that the users would stick it out. Upgrades were not cheap in the past and have gotten more expensive -- so there is pressure to deliver the goods. "Trust us -- we will deliver the goods, we just can't tell you when" is not an easy thing to say to people while asking them to upgrade yet once again. So if you need to criticize, don't criticize the development and project management teams. They are executing through a complex project plan while at the same time trying to preserve their hallmark stability. Kudos to the programmers and software quality team! Rather, now that the core implementation is probably winding down, ask if loyal users should be shown some level of appreciation because we did say "Okay....we will patient and continue to support MAXON with each upgrade over the course of this multi-year transition because we know that someday you will deliver the goods"? Just a thought. Dave

Just wondering why their would be an "option" for "Accurate CPU material"? What other options would that imply? Accurate "GPU" material? Standard GPU material? Standard CPU Material? My point being that because there is a specific reference to "CPU" as an option has to imply that there are other hardware options for doing the calculation...in this case the GPU. Therefore, in the absence of all other data (other than downloading the demo and seeing what all your options are exactly), a case could be made that the GPU has a place in the new core....at least with hair rendering. Just a thought. Dave

You realize that you can download a DEMO version of S22 right now. Better than a technical document....go try it for yourself. So when was the last time you heard and announcement on a list of new features and able to download a demo the same day? I don't think that even happened with R21 (not sure...don't hold me to it). Dave