3D-Pangel

Incredible chill music that puts you "in the zone": https://atommusicaudio.bandcamp.com/album/eon-ii Dave

If you want dark, may I suggest "Wicked Gonna Come" from Extreme music: https://www.extrememusic.com/albums/3140 Not metal, but I just love the beat. Dave

If you want chill....James Horner. Field of Dreams end theme is just outstanding as well as his composition called "The Horsemen". Sad story actually. The Horsemen were an aerial acrobatic team and James Horner was training with them to be a acrobatic pilot. He wrote "The Horseman" as a tribute to his friends and teachers and something that they could play while performing. In an interview, he said he never felt more free than when he flew and wanted that freedom to be reflected in his composition. James Horner passed away in 2015 while flying his acrobatic plane. He was my favorite composer and I feel that loss to this very day. Dave

I also love orchestral music, but my tastes range to pretty much anything that has a good beat or compelling lyrics. And if it is from the 80's (Billy Joel, Meatloaf, Elton John, Queen, Supertramp, Rolling Stones, The Who)...well, they are the classics aren't they? Also, the music has to create a mood (sad, happy, angry, call to action, soothing, etc) and therefore I tend to prefer production music because their music is usually categorized as such based on the mood that needs to be created to fit whatever is being produced. But if you want an absolute bottomless well of any type of music you can think of streamed to your PC for free, I can think of no better site than Extreme Music.com (https://www.extrememusic.com/). Just go to that site and search on whatever your in the mood for. Now they may not have main stream talent, but they have good talent (some you have and have not heard of) and tons of variety. Dave

Hey...I am an older person. Trust me, if it was between me and a younger person in need of a respirator at an over-burdened hospital, then the respirator goes to the younger person. But that is not even the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that it is between my wife and a younger person in need of a respirator at an over-burdened hospital and the respirator goes to the younger person. Trust me....I can imagine many hells that can play out during this crises so I don't need you to tell what I have and have not considered. But living in a state of panic and fear is not the solution and helps no one. Hoarding food is not the solution and helps no one (again no meat, dry goods or frozen food in the supermarket). Constantly listening to the endless repetition of our media that has over-pivoted to panic is not the solution and helps no one. Worrying about things for which you have no control is not the solution and helps no one. Worrying about what the rate of infection will be in 3 weeks is not the solution and helps no one. ...and worry will not create a hospital respirator when your suffering wife absolutely needs it. The solution is to be disciplined. To be careful. To be helpful to your neighbor (eg. volunteer to go to the supermarket for those who can not). To pull together as a community while hunkering down. The solution is to be informed about what you can do right now - and then do it! Along those lines, I have also compiled a list of facts from various sources on how to deal with this virus. Not all have been 100% cross-checked to completely insure validity, but they do make sense to me and I have distributed this list to others. In the spirit of being helpful, of setting aside unproductive and self-indulgent worry with productive action, I have include that list below. Dave The new Coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days. How can one know if he/she is infected? By the time they have fever and/or cough and go to the hospital, the lung is usually 50% Fibrosis and it's too late. Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning. Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection. In critical time, please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air. Excellent advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases: Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least. Why? Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus. If you don't drink enough water more regularly, the virus can enter your windpipe and into the lungs. That's very dangerous. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it. Increase the frequency of your laundry. Smaller loads every two days is a good recommendation (especially bath and hand towels). Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but - a lot can happen during that time - you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on. When washing your hands, don’t forget the finger tips and the thumbs. 20 seconds of washing in warm water should be sufficient. Also, keep your fingernails short. Open a window every now and then -- let the fresh air in if you can especially if you are in cold climate. Better to let in the cold outside air than breath the same recycled air over and over again where you live. Replace your toothbrush on a more regular basis. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice. Can't emphasis enough - drink plenty of water! KNOW THE SYMPTOMS: In short, if you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. It will first infect the throat, so you'll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you're drowning. It's imperative you then seek immediate attention.

My jaw hit the floor on that one. Really, a next release? I mean really? Honestly, I wish all companies were like Jawset because the software is incredible, it works with pretty much everything (all external renderers and even competitors like XP and Realflow), intuitive and fun to use. Plus the guy just keeps cranking out updates for free (eg. no maintenance plans). Not sure how he makes money but if he comes out with a V2, then he is definitely deserving a few coin for an upgrade. I hope V2 is true and within my lifetime! Dave

All, Be smart, stay safe and DON'T PANIC. Really, for the vast majority of us, the worst case scenario will be you get the flu. Normal influenza mortality rate is 0.2%. But what do they say about COVID-19? "It is 10 times more deadly than influenza!!!" That statement alone puts a shiver down your spine. But what if they said "Your chances of surviving COVID-19 is 98%" would you be as alarmed? Both say the same thing. To put in perspective, remember H1N1 (or swine flu)? That virus existed in the US for 6 months with over 1000 deaths before it was declared a crises in 2010. Ultimately, 12,000 people died from it in the US alone. Last year, 16.5 million people got standard influenza in the U.S. and 34,200 died from it. Now I am not downplaying the seriousness of this COVID-19 outbreak and I do agree with the precautions taken to date. We have shut more of our life down (sporting events, business, restaurants, shops, etc) for COVID-19 than we have every shut down in the past. In fact we did nothing in the past. Therefore, I am hopefully confident that you will not see mortality rates from COVID-19 as high as what you would see from standard influenza. I mean over 34,000 people died from standard influenza it last year in the US, but how often was that fact at the top of the news cycle? Trust me, only on the slow news days if at all. So let's be smart, wash our hands (20 seconds with soap and water and don't forget the finger tips or your thumbs), practice social distancing (6 feet) and PLEASE DO NOT OVER-REACT. This is NOT the zombie apocalypse. You don't need to hole up in a bunker for the next 3 months with MRE's and 100 roles of toilet paper. So no hoarding. There is no food shortage! Your supermarket will be re-stocking the shelves next week....and the week after that....and the week after that.....etc. If you are healthy and without any respiratory illnesses or compromised immune systems (which I hope is the vast majority of us) - you should be fine. Just live your life. You made it through H1N1. You made it through past flu seasons. You will make it through this. Honestly, I just want to be able to go to the store and get toilet paper (not having toilet paper would be a real crises). Dave BTW: Prior to the swine flu pandemic in the US, the last big pandemic was the Hong Kong flu in 1968. That flu killed 100,000 people in the US (a million world wide). On the Pandemic index scale of 1 to 5, it was a 2 (Swine flu was a 1). I got the Hong Kong flu as a young lad. Needless to say, I am still here.

One thing which I do like about the Octane and Redshift tutorials is how they use the volume shaders to control smoke/fire rendering. You can very quickly and intuitively change the entire look of the simulation by playing with these shaders (eg. all smoke to hot fire and everything in between). Prior to seeing those tutorials, similar results in TFD using AR required a lot more fiddling with the simulation parameters if you wanted a really good looking combination of fire and smoke. Therefore, can you get this same level of feedback using R20+ native nodal shading systems or do you still need to work it internally within TFD's simulation parameters? That would be very interesting to hear. If, for example I don't have Redshift but your tutorials show that Redshift produces amazing results twice as fast than using AR...well, that is good information (eg. that is just one more reason to get Redshift). Personally I don't think it can be either AR or Redshift....honestly, you need to cover both in your tutorials. Dave

Believe it or not, if it wasn't for Softimage, NONE OF US would be where we are today. Here is why and it goes all the way back to 1993. At that time, Silicon Graphics workstations were the only way to get any serious computer animation work done. Unfortunately, they topped out over $20,000 USD (and this is in 1993 dollars). So for pretty much everyone, high end computer animation was limited to a very limited number of people in the early 1990's. And then Jurassic Park was released. Jurassic Park used Alias/Wavefront (owned by Silicon Graphics and the great grandfather of Maya) for modeling and Softimage for animation. The world was changed overnight and computer animated dinosaurs become the face of high-end computing and an SGI Onyx Workstation was the only hardware you could get to run this software. And then Microsoft made an interesting move. Prior to Jurassic Park's release, Microsoft was just not convincing anyone that WinNT was a viable platform for high-end computing. In the mind of pretty much everyone, Windows was synonymous with home PC's and they just could not break through into the mainframe or high-end computing market. To change that, they needed to prove that computationally intensive software could run just as well on a WinNT operating system. So Microsoft purchased Softimage. Now they could have purchased some finite element software, or some CAD software but they were simply not sexy enough (that is, not many people really knew or cared to know what a finite element program does). At that time, the whole world thought that computer generated dinosaurs was the epitome of high-end computing so they had to buy the software that created those images. They could not buy Alias/Wavefront as that was owned by SGI, their competitor. So they bought Softimage and immediately went about converting it to run on WinNT. And that conversion changed our world and killed SGI. People saw that a $5000 WinNT box could now run software that previously could only run on a $20,000 Onyx workstation. That move convinced the world that WinNT was in fact a viable OS for high-end computationally intensive programs and now everyone was converting their software to run on WinNT as it provided a cheaper hardware path. And as the demand for hardware to run WinNT increased, hardware prices came down even more and the cycle continues. Once Microsoft proved their point, they sold Softimage to Avid in 1998 (obviously not part of their long term strategy). Therefore, had not Softimage been used in Jurassic Park, the move to put high-end computer animation software on something cheaper than an Onyx workstation probably would have taken a bit longer and cost a bit more....which means we would not be where we are today. So even if you have never used Softimage, we need to be thankful for it. Dave

Very impressive. I stepped away from Vue in 2016 as the company was just simply having some serious issues after being acquired by Bentley and have been looking for a program that provides a pleasant and intuitive UI experience for terrain creation. WC looks to provide that capability (the terrain sculpting demo was outstanding). I did view Winbush's tutorial on export to C4D but he was using Redshift. A quick search on Youtube and the tutorials at WC's web-site had other tutorials on exporting to C4D but only using 3rd party renderers. I find this rather odd....any thoughts as to why there are not examples of WC being exported to C4D native's renderer or material systems? Now that C4D has a full fledged BSDF based nodal material system, I would imagine that it is capable of similar results. So what is C4D missing that can only be filled by Redshift or Octane? Dave

The Corridor Crew will love this (great YouTube channel IMHO...and they use C4D). Interesting...markerless motion capture (MMC) comes to C4D. Believe it or not, MMC has applications in manufacturing. There has been some discussion on using it to monitor an assembly technician's actions during production. Track their motions so that if they reach for the wrong part or put it in the wrong place, then an alarm sounds. In essence, prevent the defect from occurring rather than inspecting quality into the product after assembly is completed. There are other ways to do this that are right now better and more exact, but I always had a soft spot for MMC. Dave

I just love how a 0.01 release in Blender packs as much as a full point release in C4D. Release 2.82 contains significant upgrade to Blenders simulation capability that should attract those like myself who love X-Particles. While 2.83 is in alpha, it is still packed with a number of improvements (found here). Not sure how MAXON can make R19 or R20 unusable as they are not server enabled. I am surprised that you did not upgrade to R20 when you had the chance as that release was rather impressive (IMHO - the last of the glory days). Also, not sure what the legalities are should MAXON no longer decide to support the activation of perpetual licenses in the far future. But in reality, MAXON is probably not planning on supporting perpetual license activation forever for the simple reason that your operating systems and hardware won't last forever. Usually, running really old software on new hardware or a new OS is impossible or a really unpleasant experience should you get it to work. So in reality, the life of a C4D perpetual license is tied to how long you can run it on the OS upgrades over time. I would probably put that life to somewhere between 5 and 10 years based on Microsoft's support model for Windows (5 years of active support which includes bug fixes, on-line support, and security fixes followed by 5 years of security only fixes). At some point, I would imagine a change to Windows security protocols will take license activation out of MAXON's hands. "Sorry", MAXON will say in 2027, "but due to changes to Windows 17 security requiring two factor biometric identification, we can no longer support R21 license activation". Now for those running R20 that doesn't require license activation, I still think you have at most 10 years of life with that program at most. There could be issues with running R20 on whatever Microsoft produces in 2029. Now you may think that you will just keep your PC running with the old OS forever. Well, good luck. They just don't build them like that anymore and honestly, who would want to keep using 10 year old PC hardware? I would be interested to hear from anyone who still runs R10 on Windows 10. I would imagine that is not a pleasant experience if it runs at all (and let's not even talk about the plugins). So, perpetual licenses really are NOT "perpetual". They all have a life. But as for me, I just want the ability to off-load from C4D gracefully should I decide to do so...and that requires a perpetual license. Simply loosing all my work right away when I fail to renew a subscription really bothers me but the cost increase of the perpetual licenses is just as bothersome. I keep hoping for a middle ground as discussed here, but I fear that has fallen on deaf ears. Dave

Inside info? Hmmm...I think that is hoping for too much. Glad to see Paul Babb getting the bump up to Global Head of Community and Customer Service (or he was there already....not sure as the last I recall he was President of MAXON American). I met him at the Adobe/MAXON Power Integration tour through Boston many years ago. Very humble and unassuming individual who simple introduced himself with a handshake and a simple "Hi. I'm Paul". I had no idea who he was but he certainly knew his stuff. From what I hear, those who report to him also hold him in high regard. So (IMHO) he is a great fit for a role that involves the community and customer service. Just my 2 cents. Dave

Well....they do frown on tagging a managers car with a sad face using a can of spray paint...but that was long ago and I don't like to talk about it. 😀 If there was a complete and uniform culture of unhappy people working long hours at low pay and abusive conditions, it would ultimately show in the work. And right now, Disney (as a corporation) does produce some (not all) work that I do enjoy. Personally, I am not a fan of Disney but I will admit that I do enjoy the Marvel movies and the work of Pixar. I do hear that there are a lot of politics at ILM (now owned by Disney) and within the management team handling the Star Wars franchise. Fortunately, ILM's work is still outstanding but as for Star Wars.....well....let's just say you won't find me in the movie theater for those movies and leave it at that. I think what it comes down to is management. Management drives the culture and as there are many different management teams within any large corporation, there are many different cultures within those companies. Maybe the Marvel management team drives a much more collaborative culture with less politics than does the Star Wars team - maybe that's why the Marvel movies are more enjoyable to watch (at least to me). But all culture starts with the management team and its leaders. Leadership changes always bring with it some apprehension too and for good reason. A new leader can really change life at work. Also, people do (and should) have a "show me" attitude concerning what type of culture he/she wants to create within the group. The leader could give the most impressive introductory speech or the warmest handshake when you first meet him or her, but it comes down to whether they show they "walk the talk" on a consistent basis. Until then, the jury is still out until actions speak louder than words. Dave

Okay....I am a hobbyist and not in the animation/DCC industry at all. But I do work for an extremely large global corporation that has also topped the list as one of the best places to work in the US and globally. As great as that company is (and it is a great place to work), there are politics where I work. NEWS FLASH: Work politics are EVERYWHERE! In many cases, people misread the "inner circles" that get formed around management as office politics. But in reality, inner circles are natural. "Inner circles" get formed because people naturally gravitate to those who they trust, have worked with in the past and who have proven themselves. No one can succeed alone and we all need help along the way. Those that help you become part of your inner circle. It is pure human nature to have them and not some part of a subversive clique that she makes out. So everyone has them. She just doesn't know how to identify them and navigate them successfully and that has to do with how you manage your career. If you manage you career poorly, then you will find yourself on the outside looking in because you have not become part of other people's "inner circles". So it comes down to how you manage your career. There are people that I mentor where I work and I tell them that every career has 3 main phases: Phase 1: Build your name brand. When people hear your name, how do you want to be thought of? Do you step up when asked? Do you step up without being asked? Do you get things done on time and meet your commitments. Do you focus more on the issue than on the personality (little minds talk about people, big minds talk about the issue). Can you be trusted? Are you kind and polite (that still counts). When you speak up, do you speak with facts or do you speak with emotion. People are more likely to misread emotion than misread facts and misreading emotion can hurt your name brand (in short, better to be quiet if your position is more emotionally driven than fact driven). Do you put the company first or do you put yourself first (trust me - people can spot the difference). Do you have other people's backs? If you can show that you are looking out for others more than just yourself, your name brand grows tremendously. No one get's promoted based on the recommendation of a single person. Usually, it is a peer discussion among the management team. I have been in those discussions trying to get my person promoted and as long as at least one other manager agrees with my assessment, then the promotion goes through. So worry about other teams as well. Build your name brand with integrity and hard work and pretty soon you will be part of other people's inner circles. The more inner circles you belong to, the more opportunity will come your way. Phase 1 requires you to "pay your dues" because it requires years of hard work. No one said it will be easy. Also be patient because no matter where you go, everyone pays their dues. Phase 2: You have paid your dues in Phase 1. You have built a name brand within your company you can be proud of. Now comes the phase when you can trade on that name brand to get where you want to be in your career. With each inner circle you have worked your way into with hard work, your network grows. Use that network to look for and/or ask for opportunity. Remember, you have proven yourself at this point. So now when you ask for what you want in your career, people will listen. But in that discussion, you don't demand. You don't threaten. You ask. The answer may be "no" but accept that answer with grace because doing otherwise would threaten your name brand. If you continue to preserve your name brand in this phase, your opportunity will come. Now, if all you hear is "no" then you must go back to Phase 1. But you may want to restart Phase 1 with another company. That is a tough choice but one that may need to be made. But before you make that decision, ask for honest feedback as to why you keep hearing "no". You could blame others for having to go back to Phase 1. That may make you feel better but it is more destructive than constructive. Better to "own it" --- use the experience, no matter how bad it was, to improve yourself. Experience is a hard teacher and simply blaming others does not help you get the most from a bad experience. Phase 3: Staying Relevant. If you thought Phase 1 and 2 were tough, they are nothing compared to Phase 3. You have built your career to where you want it to be but at some point it is going to stagnate. In Phase 1 and 2, you have developed some level of expertise that the company depends on but over time, things change. That expertise may no longer be relevant or can be obtain cheaper somewhere else. At this point, you may start to wonder about job security because being stagnant is never healthy to anyone. So it is here that must throw yourself completely out of your comfort zone. It can be a completely different role - one that you were not "officially" trained to do. You could also step up once again to take on a BHAG - Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Trust me, no matter what you choose to stay relevant, you will be drinking from the fire hose in this phase. If managed properly, it will be a period of tremendous growth where you prove to yourself and to others that you can do other things. It is also quite liberating once you get through it. But what you have done is proven to others that you are valuable, capable of taking on any assignment -- and therefore, still relevant. Note that throwing yourself out of your comfort zone is not a one time event in Phase 3. It is something you must continually do whenever you feel stagnant in this final phase of your career. So does any of this sound easy? NO! It is NOT easy. Success at any career requires hard work....tons of hard work in fact. That's why they people ask you what do you do for "work". It is called "work" for a reason. To expect anything else is setting yourself up for failure. To get back to this women's video, there is nothing she has said that is not unique to the animation industry or Disney. Even if you become self-employed, unless you are completely free of providing a service for others, there will always be politics and deadlines. So while she pursues her own business, if she has a client, then she is still not working for herself --- she is working for a client. Trust me, the politics of gathering and then working with clients will be no different than what she thinks she is running away from at Disney and building your name brand is more critical when you are self-employed.

BTW: While I appreciate Mr. McGavran's involvement in the forum, I would love to hear him at least recognize that he hears and appreciates the concerns of a long term C4D user who just wants to keep using the program long into his retirement. I am just not sure that subscriptions are the most financially viable path over the long term on a fixed income. Dave

No it is. I just don't like the 30% price increase that happened to keep a permanent license when subscriptions were introduced (from $720 in the old MSA program to a $950 cost for the new permanent license). Not really fair to a 10 year Studio owner who has faithfully upgraded every year to then be hit with a massive price increase (and it used to be $650 all those years). I understand why it happened but that doesn't make it any less painful. MAXON wants people on the subscription plan. Re-occurring revenue is a wonderful thing to pretty much any company. So part of me thinks that MAXON's logic is this: To get people to adopt subscriptions we will make it the same cost as the old MSA. If they don't, then they get hit with a 30% price increase for a permanent license. So we are being forced to subscriptions. I also fear that permanent licenses will be more prone to price increases in the future than subscription prices. Nothing to say that will happen - but it is a logical outcome given how companies love re-occurring revenue. I am a long term thinker, and there very well could be a future when all I can afford is a subscription. My big fear with subscriptions is loss of everything if I can't afford the subscription in the future. In that world, should financial circumstances require me to no longer afford a C4D subscription, I want a jumping off point that is somewhat reasonably affordable and which keeps me using C4D (even if it is one version down) and that is why I came up with the win-win scenario. Dave

Mr. McGavran, Every offer I see has the words "convert your permanent to subscription" buried in the text. But if what you say is true (and there should be no reason why anyone should doubt you), then you need to make it more public because overall, it is a good start to addressing everyone's anxiety about subscriptions (loss of access if you don't renew)!!! But ultimately, what I want to see also is "keep your subscription but add a permanent license at a reduced price". This would be along the lines of the win-win I proposed above for the reasons I also outlined above. Hopefully, you appreciate that these are very real concerns. If there was that option too, then I may opt for the C4D+Redshift subscription program (eg. ALL IN) and a happy C4D user until I outlive my retirement income. Dave

Subscription is the cheaper option but one that you need to stay on it if you want to keep using the program. To appreciate my proposal, you need to think long term. Imagine 10 years down the line of being a subscription participant. Your last permanent license is fixed at R20, but C4D is now at R30 and essentially a completely different program. In those 10 years you have built up or acquired quite a library of models, shaders, plugins, scripts etc. If you total it all up over 10 years, it could be a significant investment in time and/or money. Now, imagine in 10 years that circumstances are such that you have decided to leave C4D and you no longer wish to renew the subscription. Well, all those assets are now worthless or are so numerous that you haven't exported everything to FBX for use in a target application. Plus there is no guarantee that the conversion will be clean and/or not require significant clean-up in the target application. Either way, you are looking at a loss of assets and/or a lot of work to give those assets a new life outside of C4D. And if you used plugins or modifiers in their creation, then that just adds to the uncertainty of whether or not you could port them over. If all you have is R20, well there is no guarantee everything you have created since then would work in such an old release (chances are, it would not). As I don't know what the future holds, I want an insurance policy that my assets will still be usable down the road. But I don't want to have to pay the massive 53% premium that MAXON wants each year for me to purchase a permanent license. I just don't think that is fair. I am okay with a paying half that premium each year to make my R(n-1) subscription permanent when they release the new version (or R(n)). That way I don't lose everything should circumstances change and I need to move on from C4D. If this wasn't a real concern, there would be no push-back on subscriptions. But we all know that isn't true. Again, this is a long term play and to appreciate the win-win I proposed, you need to think long term. Dave

Interesting to see that the debate on cost continues...and interesting to see that I no longer wish to argue the point. Rather, I would like to have a serious discussion on win-win options that benefit everyone! To do that, let's get to core of what MAXON and long time users want: MAXON: MAXON wants a re-occurring revenue stream coming from their user base. You really can't blame them for that and subscriptions are a great way to make that happen. All moves made with R21 (one license, pricing on subscriptions, license server, etc) are all very good moves for their business as it reduces cost while at the same time providing a path to a more predictable future revenue stream. With business, cash flow is king and if you can get to a business model that almost guarantee's a cash flow over time, then that just makes long term planning on head-count, acquisitions, product development easier. Plus, investors love it. Long Time Users: We have spent years building up assets (plugins, models, scenes, scripts, libraries, etc.) specifically tailored to C4D. And each year, we add to those assets and those new assets are minted in the latest version of the program. Unfortunately, the nature of software development is that everything is forward compatible (R19 files will work in R21) but NOT backward compatible (R21 files will not work in R19). As such, we still want access to all the new assets we create each year with each release of the program ON A PERMANENT BASIS. So we prefer permanent licenses. Talk of turning off access to those new assets in any way after we have paid for the software bothers us significantly. So any "sale" on switching from a permanent license to a subscription that turns off the permanent license is extremely upsetting. Finally, raising the cost of permanent license upgrades significantly for loyal long time permanent license holders just hurts. Now we feel trapped because the nature of upgrades is such that the longer you step off the upgrade path the more expensive it is to step back on. MAXON needs to appreciate the sacrifice of time and money people put into mastering their program and it needs to be respected with whatever business model they develop. To summarize: MAXON wants the re-occurring revenue that comes with subscriptions Long time users never want to lose access to their assets but do not want to be raked over the coals to upgrade their perpetual licenses with each release. THE WIN-WIN SOLUTION To set the stage for this proposal, lets assume that a subscription stays at $720/year while the upgrade cost for a perpetual license is $950. MAXON keeps those prices and options as-is but to it adds the following option for ONLY permanent license holders: Win-Win Scenario 1 You are permanent license holder for the current version at the time a new version is announced. If you enter into an subscription plan for that newly announced version then should you decide at some point in the future leave that subscription plan, you can convert your current subscription license to a permanent license for a small additional fee - say, $100. Remember that you paid for that subscription up front. So opting out does not cost MAXON anything but only nets them an additional $100. As this decision will most likely be made at the time a new release is announced, you are paying this additional money for a permanent license to the previous version. As an example, assume you are an R21 permanent license holder and R22 is announced. Then to get into this plan you have to accept an R22 subscription. In the future when R23 is announced and you decide to NOT continue with the program, you can convert your R22 subscription license to a permanent license for an additional $100. MAXON can make this a 1 time event for people who are leaving the program only and make those converted permanent licenses non-transferable. Under this plan, you stay current with your subscription plan year after year but should financial circumstances change and you can no longer continue with the program, then the fear of losing access is now removed by that $100 option to keep your most current version still active with a permanent license. All the costs to get back into the program in the future are the same as they would be for people with down-revved permanent licenses. Another version of this plan which is more attractive to MAXON (and a little less attractive to the user) is the same as before but with the following change: Win-Win Scenario 2: You can ONLY get the option to convert your current subscription license to a permanent license for an additional $100 if you continue with your subscription for the next release. For example, you have an R21 permanent license and sign up for the R22 subscription plan as before. When R23 comes out, you can only convert your R22 subscription license to an an R22 permanent license for an additional $100 should you decide to continue with the R23 subscription. This option continues year after year netting MAXON an additional $100 each year while preserving their subscription revenue. This option is still "somewhat" attractive to the user because it lowers the annual cost of a permanent license from $950 to $820 (subscription cost plus $100). This permanent license should be discounted because it is a permanent license on a down-revved version. Now the big downside to users with Scenario 2 is that should you decide to completely opt out of continuing with R23 and are severing ties with the program, then the last permanent license you will have will be 2 versions down from the most current (in this example, R21 as the current subscription you have is with R22 which you will NOT be renewing). Therefore you could lose access to your last years worth of work but over time, any plan that ONLY puts 1 years worth of work at risk is still a much better plan than a pure subscription model where everything done with a subscription license is at risk. The other win-win for MAXON with both scenarios is that it encourages new users who have ONLY used C4D via a subscription plan to consider purchasing a permanent license at some point because these benefits ONLY extend to PERMANENT LICENSE holders. You can't enter into this $100 annual program unless you do so with a current permanent license. At some point in the far future, subscription users are going have the same concerns over access to their assets after they leave the subscription plan that old timers like myself have. They may want this option at some point, and the only way to get there is to buy a permanent license at full cost. Please take the time to consider this. As much as I have spoken against subscriptions, I understand the business forces driving you to do it. MAXON has always been very good to its customers and its employees in the past and I hope that culture to create win-win scenarios for everyone did not get lost in the midst of your new business model. Dave

So maybe Nemetschek should re-word its press release: n this transaction, MAXON acquires the US company Red Giant by combining a cash consideration of around EUR 70 million and granting shares in MAXON. Plus - I still see risk in handing over $77M USD at a time when MAXON is re-vamping its revenue model from sales to subscription as history has shown that this type of change always creates a short term drop in revenue with a return to profitability in 3 years. Add to that the cost of Redshift (whatever that may be and however that transaction was being handled whether it be by stock and/or on-hand cash or debt) and any reasonable person would begin to wonder about financial risk. Now, add to the financial risk is the fact that all mergers/acquisitions have some organizational risk. Any type of acquisition or merger always creates periods of instability for both companies. There is always some adjustments as management roles change and both companies try to figure out their place in this new relationship. Even if the newly acquired or merged company is left alone, the fact they have been merged and/or acquired implies that there will be a change to "something" - otherwise what was the point? So as the two companies come together, then there could be changes to long term product road maps, current product development, and/or product development teams. It is hard to go through something like this without some loss to productivity and/or headcount changes because not every employee is always going to agree with the "new" direction and/or management structure. That is just human nature. So again, there will always be some instability as MAXON tries to absorb not one, but two merger/acquisitions within 6 months. Now, if MAXON was a huge corporation (eg. > 5000 employees) then the risk would be less - but there is always risk. Even huge corporations can fail at the simplest of mergers. But MAXON is not huge - in fact they are quite small by comparison - so this will have some impact....and therefore risk. Plus, the majority of us don't see the synergies behind the Red Giant "merger" right away. That's a problem. For example, if it was Insydium we would all go "of course" because those two companies have alignment: X-Particles fills a big hole in MAXON's tool set. Therefore we would not be that concerned about how well Insydium merges with MAXON because we see the synergy behind that merger. But we don't see that with Red Giant and so we have to wonder how well this will work. So this news creates questions and concerns that are quite reasonable ones to raise and not baseless rumors. Can a small company like MAXON take on this amount of change in such a short time: change to revenue structure coupled with two big acquisitions or mergers. That is a lot to put on Mr. McGavran's plate and I do wish him the best. Despite how much I disagree with their new subscription and perpetual license models - I want MAXON to be so successful that their viability during my retirements years is a no brain-er because growing with (and being able to afford) C4D is how I I want to spend my retirement. Dave

Wow. $77 million USD plus 15% of MAXON. What did they pay for Redshift? Anyone know? It would have to be at least equal this amount. Spending that much for Red Giant is kind of a risky move at a time when MAXON is still trying to absorb Redshift AND changing their entire revenue model. Financially, I wonder what their debt to equity ratio is right now? Are they starting to be cash strapped? No wonder perpetual licenses have gone up 53%. Sooo....don't expect any big changes in MAXON's prices for C4D any time soon. They need the cash.

Just a thought, but we are all approaching this from the standpoint of how C4D will integrate Red Giant's 2D plugins. Maybe we are looking at this backward. Could some of C4D's architecture -- specifically its MoGraph architecture -- be adapted to a 2D plugin for Adobe? Or more specifically, maybe the merger will create a direct competitor to Element 3D? Or maybe the goal is to expand C4D Lite's capabilities as an Adobe plugin rather than C4D as a 3D application? My point is this: we all thinking that if MAXON acquire's it, it will be integrated in C4D. That may not always be the right assumption. This acquisition could have absolutely nothing to do with C4D (don't they already have enough on their plate?) and have everything to do with benefiting Red Giant. When I look at it this way, things start to make sense. Again....just a thought. Dave

Hmmm...So MAXON (a 3D company) buys a major plugin vendor for Adobe products (essentially a 2D company). This is odd and I don't see what it gains both companies. Now, Red Giant has a annual subscription model of everything for $600 ($50/month). I really don't see their products being part of the MAXON C4D subscription package for the current price - but my hope is that it is part of MAXON moving in the Creative Cloud direction. Hey....if $60/month got me C4D, Red Giant and Redshift, then that is starting to be attractive. But if it just adds another $50 to their subscription program (like Redshift did), then that is a far cry from Creative Clouds value. I hope we get more an announcement - other than "Hi. We are merging with Red Giant. Merry Christmas" - that goes into "why?". It would be nice if someone could paint a vision of the synergies of these two companies and how they work together for the benefit of the user. Just cause they all get along at trade shows and drink the same beer is not a compelling reason. Dave

Yes...stability is important. No argument there, but my point was that history has shown that thinking that "stability" will preserve market share alone is not necessarily a wise choice. By example I was pointing to Lucent which was a bellwether telecom company. Lucent was slow to market on some products because they made sure that the product was stable as a rock and would last forever in the field. They charged a premium for this stability. Now telecommunications infrastructure has to be stable and redundant because if networks go down, commerce stops and (in the case of emergency services like fire and ambulance or hospitals) lives could be put at risk. So it should be a no brainer that you pay that premium for stability and you wait longer than most for new features and capabilities to insure that you always get a stable product. Well, that did not happen in the big telecom run-up of the 1990's. Being first to market with the new shiny feature won the day and today Lucent no longer exists. So when I said "stability is important but this is just DCC software after all" I was inferring that lives will not be lost and financial markets will not shut down should you lose your work on an animation...but they will when your entire network crashes or is hacked. Telecommunication network providers get quite angry in those situations and threaten all sorts of nasty things like law suits, full page ads in the Wall Street Journal blasting your product, etc. But still, they tossed the need for buying stable telecommunication gear and software out the window in rush to keep their networks competitive in the dot-com run-up of the 1990's. So while we all love MAXON's passion for stability, in the face of all the other things we don't like such as subscriptions and waiting forever for features, MAXON should not ignore Blender that doesn't have as strong a reputation for stability but is winning on a number of other issues like cost and features . Stability alone did not save Lucent...and my hope is that MAXON recognizes that stability is not going keep people dedicated to C4D in the face of something as universally distasteful as subscriptions (or conversely massive price increases on perpetual licenses).