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Will there be a free update for 3.0 release to all existing users


lbmurali
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Ok, this may be off topic and I am sorry but...

Something has been bugging me quite a bit recently.

Does anyone else find Improv offensive?

I think he/she is completely rude and disrespectful to Andrew, 3D Coat, and anyone who dares to respond to his/her posts, even when people are trying to offer assistance.

If you love Mudbox so frickin much, why don't you just bugger off over to their forums and stop spreading your negativity over here.

Either that, or try to lighten up a bit. You always seem so damn angry.

There is no need for it and I simply can not stand people with such a bad attitude! :angry:

Andrew; do not be discouraged by Improv or any other ungrateful penny pinchers. As far as I am concerned, you have given me a great product which is fantastic value for money and many other people here agree with me.

You are conscientious, highly dedicated and fair.

I will pay whatever the upgrade to v3 costs and what’s more, I will be happy to pay because you and your family deserve it. :)

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Does anyone else find Improv offensive?

No, I don't find Improv offensive, in a general meaning. There must be an Improv on every forum out there. Maybe it's some new generation of high-tech artificial intelligence virus, bringing a kind of strange lack of common-sense respect with itself. Or maybe it's just a poor kid getting beaten-up at school everyday and then beaten-up at home, who lost all faith in the goodness of (a part of) mankind. Who knows really? No one does.

Although I don't know Andrew personally, he seems to me the kind of person you could call: too good. I am blessed to have some of those people around me as friends and family, and find it quite natural to defend them, as their goodness gets often exploited by others.

As for Improv, may his soul find peace one day. I suggest taking a break off the mouse-clicking business and sculpting stone with a jackhammer.

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But if the price is going to increase exponentially with every major version released then in a few years we will have to pay over 1000 euro for 3D-Coat. Hope there won't be a Autodesk subscription type program in the end.. :)

/ Max

Yes, I guess that's what I was trying to say. For example, I simply can't afford to upgrade all my modeling programs. I will have the same problem with Zbrush/3DC. There's no question in my mind that 3DC is worth every penny I've spent and probably would continue to be . But I can't justify the higher (than expected) maintenance/feature cycle that appears to be coming.

So there are questions. If something happened to Andrew, will 3DC continue to evolve? I know that's not a nice thing to think about, but it can't be ignored.

For the same reason Andrew feels he has to to increase the price of 3DC, it's the same reason I have to decide to buy the upgrade or not. Or choose the Zbrush path.

If the price of 3DC remained in line with my initial purchase price, I could and would continue upgrading both and maybe (probably) drop Zbrush. But (and this is just me on a fixed income) I can't support both at their current upgrade costs.

I don't want my post to appear like a threat or make it a Zbrush/3DC war. I love 3DC, but I have to be practical.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, it's "sell a lot at a low price or sell less at a high price."

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Hi Andrew.

I bought the commercial one and am really happy with it.

Some words about the pricing for the coming 3.0 .

I would just look at other developer and try to find out how they did and handle the upgrade pricings.

And I allso would try to compare what faetures they offer in their software for actual price with my software to have a better idea what my software should cost for what it offers.

I think no matter if it would cost 180, 200, 250, maybe 300 or more,,, but I would try to be shure to place my software in the right pricing cathegory.

If I am really out for Pros I would have to think seriously about Ui and Workflow enhancements of my Software to give timesaver.

And just my opinion about upgrade pricings.

An Upgrade should not cost more than the upcoming new version.

If you sell V3 for 200 or 300,,, you should stay under these final pricings or just set the difference as upgrade price.

The other way would be to offer for upgrade price and additional "fee" to implemet the features of the upcoming new version into 2.x to give people the possibility to work now with these features without having to wait for the new version.

Maybe the best way would be to offer two options.

1. Just pay 100 and wait untill the V3 arrives to get hands on the new features.

2. or Pay 100+20 to get all the good stuff immediatly until they are implemented on the way from getting V2 to v3,,, to work with them.

An additional option could be allso a low version for Hobbyists with a lower price but with the same two options.

Just an idea.

To some of the customers:

I think some people don't know the difference between update and upgrade.

Update means,,, getting just BugFixes and Optimizations fro free.

Upgrade means,,, getting new Features and paying for them!

Andrew gave many upgrades for free,,, just think about what you could have to pay for all these.

Wouldn't it be fair to give him back a bit?

And allso it's his Software and he must decide how much he wants for it.

If he asks us, we customers can just give our opinions and thoughts.

Greets,

Can

Sorry,,, if I wrote something with wrong sense, but I am not writing often so long posts in english.

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Ok, this may be off topic and I am sorry but...

Something has been bugging me quite a bit recently.

Does anyone else find Improv offensive?

I think he/she is completely rude and disrespectful to Andrew, 3D Coat, and anyone who dares to respond to his/her posts, even when people are trying to offer assistance.

If you love Mudbox so frickin much, why don't you just bugger off over to their forums and stop spreading your negativity over here.

Either that, or try to lighten up a bit. You always seem so damn angry.

There is no need for it and I simply can not stand people with such a bad attitude! :angry:

Andrew; do not be discouraged by Improv or any other ungrateful penny pinchers. As far as I am concerned, you have given me a great product which is fantastic value for money and many other people here agree with me.

You are conscientious, highly dedicated and fair.

I will pay whatever the upgrade to v3 costs and what’s more, I will be happy to pay because you and your family deserve it. :)

It seems that way, i found his post(not just this post..others also) offensive/rude. I'm sure he/she will grow out of it one day and discover there are better ways to handle posting in an online community/forum... :blink:

FYI, i used to be that way in the past too. I dont have anything more to add to the whole upgrade issue, i think the asking price is fine as long as the features are implemented properly.i'll upgrade and still buy a copy of MBx 2009.

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Ok, this may be off topic and I am sorry but...

Something has been bugging me quite a bit recently.

Does anyone else find Improv offensive?

Yes!

Andrew is extremely generous and helpful with his product. He doesn't need someone saying "So what" when he talks about his working long hours and supporting his family. That's just plain rude. Even if you're 14 years old...just a guess.

With volumetric sculpting 3D-Coat 3.0 will be a whole new product. If you don't want to pay the money, don't. You still have 2.10 which is a great product as is.

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Thanks for feedback on this topic. Really it is important to set proper upgrade price because if I will set it too big I can loose much users so even economically price should not be too big. I have reviewed upgrade price question, I will tell decission soon. Don't worry, I hope we will find fair decission. Price of upgrade will be no more then price difference between 3 and 2, so not more then 80$ at least for several weeks after starting sales of 3.0 (and no more then 60$ for purchacers after 15). I will tell more precise information slightli later. But even bying 3DC now you will not pay for V3 more then it's price in a summ.

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Thanks for feedback on this topic. Really it is important to set proper upgrade price because if I will set it too big I can loose much users so even economically price should not be too big. I have reviewed upgrade price question, I will tell decission soon. Don't worry, I hope we will find fair decission. Price of upgrade will be no more then price difference between 3 and 2, so not more then 80$ at least for several weeks after starting sales of 3.0 (and no more then 60$ for purchacers after 15). I will tell more precise information slightli later. But even bying 3DC now you will not pay for V3 more then it's price in a summ.

A few of thoughts on upgrade pricing:

A program goes through several phases: initial development (focus on rapidly adding features and eliminating failure points) and mature development (a core feature set that defines who the software is for is refined and kept useful while the only new features being added are ones that closely complement those core features). This change in development is reflected in the revenue from the software: usually the money coming in is low initially but (hopefully) rises rapidly before settling into a steady income stream that rises very slowly over time.

There are three main customers, current users, previous users and people who want to be current users. During initial development the largest number of people will be "want to be users". During mature development, the largest group of people should be current users and the smallest should be previous users.

Most users are likely to be hobbyists or small business owners since they outnumber professionals in the general population. You can exclude the hobbyist/prosumer/small business person by increasing the price as most are going to be price sensitive. At the same point, if you price the software too low, they will not value it at all--price a cup of coffee at $0.50 and it does not seem good enough for someone as important as me, price it at $3.00 and I feel I'm getting something special I deserve, price it at $10 and no cup of coffee is worth that much unless the proceeds are going to my favourite charity. There is a price "sweet point" where the revenue will be the maximum possible. I'm not sure where that is, but I bet it hovers around 80% of $100 units (people think in integers but then want a discount) making it somewhere between $80 (80% of 100--almost too cheap) and $240 (80$ of 300--almost too expensive) Beyond $300 and you are getting almost exclusively into big business/professional (of just really hardcore hobbyist) exclusive price territory. As a small business person/prosumer, I will not pay more than 80% of $400 for a tool (I passed on the DAZ sale of Zbrush because of the price) as it is too much to risk on one piece of software, although I will buy two $200 software packages and I am willing to pay upgrade prices every 12-24 months, meaning I have some money to spend but I have to spread it and my risk that I am wasting it, over time.

There are two main ways of thinking about buying software: Ownership (buy an item that is supposed to work in a certain way flawlessly like buying a car with a warranty), or Leasing/Renting/Subscription (buy use of an item for a certain length of time).

Of the people who think of owning software, they expect bug fixes ("bug fixes" includes fixing failure points in the software but they also believe that feature completion--making a current feature as perfect as possible--and making the software compatible with new versions of their operating system are bug fixing) to be part of the price. In their minds, the money they paid for the software includes the current software plus point releases. They will pay for completely new features but usually expect to only pay a proportion of the total price they paid initially as they already have most of the features. The biggest difference of opinion between the developer and the user is what constitutes a "new feature" and what is a "bug fix".

Of the people who think of renting software, they expect to pay so much money per time period to get an ongoing service and whatever development happens during that time. However, they expect that the software/service will be tailored to their needs so long as they keep paying money. There is no differentiation between features and bug fixes in this model, just continued evolution.

If the developer releases the software on a regular cycle, with a consistent price, the revenue from the two payment schemes are practically equivalent. The subscription model is better for the developer as it tends to produce a steady income stream making planning more reliable. The ownership model is more convenient for the user as they can opt out of an upgrade that doesn't offer them any value and still continue to use the software. From a design perspective, the goals of development are the same: increase the population of current users by limiting the creation of previous users and by adding new users. This is done by keeping development focussed on the core usable features not available elsewhere and adding features that complement that core set of features. Ideally, the easiest and most efficient thing for the user to do to keep working is to keep buying your software.

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Just want to throw in my two cents. :)

Personally I think 3d Coat is a superb program and is developing very quickly. I'm very impressed. I think with some of the upcoming features, $150 to $200 is probably a reasonable price range. I don't have a very large income so I personally have trouble purchasing programs when it gets over that price.

Now the only way I am going to be able to keep upgrading 3d Coat is if the upgrades are cheaper. If the upgrades remain around $100, I know that I'll be able to continue upgrading. If they get higher than that, I will struggle to keep up. If the upgrades get to be over $200, I'm very likely going to fall out of the loop. That is, unless my financial situation changes. As much as I love 3d Coat and I think it's got a LOT of bang for the buck, I really hope that it doesn't develop into a premium brand that only the rich and large studios can afford. If it can continue on it's current course of development and remain cheaper than Mudbox and Zbrush, I'll likely be sticking around. ;)

It is a fantastic program and an outstanding deal! I hope that it remains that way in the future. :)

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People in forums can be so rude and tactless. Too much computer skills and so little people and social skills.

For developer to increase price too much they might loose some userbase since a program is still a necessity or hobby. The developer will also have to fight with piracy if price is too high this is sad but there's no way to stop illegal software use. Higher price the more its pirated.

Price too low then the developer might not think its worth it to make the software and just sell the technology to somebody else. Maybe autodesk. So price will definitely be HIGHER.

Its hard to say what price is fair or not. I think a roadmap and features for 3.0 will have to be made for those thinking to upgrade or to move on. So maybe a thread on what to see in 3.0 would be good. Not just promised features but working and stable feature list for 3.0.

My two yen.

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I think that Andrews prices are definitly fair and reasonable.

I'm a "poor student" from "poor country" (maybe not when speaking of Africa, but definitly when speaking of USA, England, Germany etc). 200$ (or 100 for upgrade) seems a lot of money. And it is lot of money ... for a bread, but not for a 3D software. As few people before me said, if you want to judge whether the price is too high or not, look and the competitors first.

The only big mistake Andrew made was, that he made the princing too complicated to understand. Various prices for upgrade for various customers depending on their purchase money, it is way to confuse customers, even worse, to make them angry.

If Andrew said, 3.0 will be for cca 200$, upgrade from 2.1 to 3.0 will be for cca 100$, everything would be much clearer and easier. But he is still new in big business, isn't he :)

And now I'm thinking of one possible way, Andrew can turn 3D-Brush 3.0 into new product, let say, 3D-Clay. Then you will have 3D-brush (2.1) with discontinued upgrading (only some hot bugfixes) a and 3D-Clay. 200$ will price for new piece of software, 100$ will be price for upgrade to new software.

Yes, it is a sleight, trick or cheat when asking me, but it is legal and everyone does it a no one complains, until you mention it.

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Or he could make it simple and have a version which includes customer support through the forum and email for customers who wanna pay a higher price for the product, and a lower priced product without any form of support other than the updates released. No email and no forum support, it will ofcourse be cheaper than the other one.

/ Max

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Or he could make it simple and have a version which includes customer support through the forum and email for customers who wanna pay a higher price for the product, and a lower priced product without any form of support other than the updates released. No email and no forum support, it will ofcourse be cheaper than the other one.

This would mean locking some people out of the forum, which also means missing out on any useful suggestions for improvements they might have. The way I understand it, Andrew is happy to get all the suggestions he can. otherwise he just has to remember or constantly check a list of who he can and cannot respond to.

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This would mean locking some people out of the forum, which also means missing out on any useful suggestions for improvements they might have. The way I understand it, Andrew is happy to get all the suggestions he can. otherwise he just has to remember or constantly check a list of who he can and cannot respond to.

Agree, creating a situation where you seperate the "have's" and "have not" would be more trouble than its worth.

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I just purchased 3D Coat today and then found out the price changes soon. I only discovered this product yesterday on the 3D Connexion site. I am not sure what this means for me did I just spend extra money or should I have waited a few days? I am slightly confused is 3.0 coming out soon? I am very happy with the product I purchased and the attitude of the developer I have read here and understand the frustrations as an Indy developer of pricing your product and growth and keeping the support going along with your vision and dream and paying the bills.. especially with a family. I hope that all will work out the best for you in this process. I am just wondering how making a purchase today effects me in the long run.

Kudos and cheers to you and yours

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I just purchased 3D Coat today and then found out the price changes soon. I only discovered this product yesterday on the 3D Connexion site. I am not sure what this means for me did I just spend extra money or should I have waited a few days? I am slightly confused is 3.0 coming out soon?

Congrats on your purchase. :) I recall in a CGTalk thread Andrew said he would like to release it "during 2008", so that's probably not any time really soon. Not to mention the "very early alpha release" just came out about a week ago.

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Thanks for feedback on this topic. Really it is important to set proper upgrade price because if I will set it too big I can loose much users so even economically price should not be too big. I have reviewed upgrade price question, I will tell decission soon. Don't worry, I hope we will find fair decission. Price of upgrade will be no more then price difference between 3 and 2, so not more then 80$ at least for several weeks after starting sales of 3.0 (and no more then 60$ for purchacers after 15). I will tell more precise information slightli later. But even bying 3DC now you will not pay for V3 more then it's price in a summ.

Thank you Andrew that is very fair, I will definately upgrade if this is the case.

Simon.

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Congrats on your purchase. :) I recall in a CGTalk thread Andrew said he would like to release it "during 2008", so that's probably not any time really soon. Not to mention the "very early alpha release" just came out about a week ago.

I just found the 3.0 Alpha and omg I am in love with this product!!!! Andrew you have a new fan in me.. What ever the upgrade cost you'll get it.. I think if you worked support for the TGE/TGEA game engine formats: .dts and .dif would open major doors of revenue for you as this could be presented as the defacto editor for the defacto Indy developer Game engine offered from Garage Games.

Much Respect from Florida, USA. :D!

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I just found the 3.0 Alpha and omg I am in love with this product!!!! Andrew you have a new fan in me.. What ever the upgrade cost you'll get it.. I think if you worked support for the TGE/TGEA game engine formats: .dts and .dif would open major doors of revenue for you as this could be presented as the defacto editor for the defacto Indy developer Game engine offered from Garage Games.

Much Respect from Florida, USA. :D!

I have just bought a copy of 2.10 for $140 (+VAT) - I haven't had the benefits of a years worth of free upgrades, and will no doubt pay the price of the upgrade to 3.0 (around $80 from what I can figure from this forum), so why don't I feel the urge to complain?

Oh yes that's it - because 3.0 isn't out yet, it could be 3 months or more away, and I only paid for a copy of 2.10.. I knew there was something ;)

Seriously guys - if you want free software, it's probably best to stick to Blender, and Gimp. I wish my next Photoshop, Lightwave or Modo upgrades (not to mention Max & SoftImage) would be less than $100.

As for additional game support. The more the merrier, I am personally quite happy with the lwo, Obj, and Fbx support so far, but to add my Off Topic 2p worth - the Gamebro .nif format (object and textures) is one I would like to see happen.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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While I tend to agree with Monsoon regarding the value of support and communication, as a Mac user, I do have some concerns about paying 50% or more of the product price again so soon, given the lack of substantial upgrades since the Mac version was released.

I'm very happy that Mac 3D-Coat exists, and will support future development as well, it just seems a bit quick to hit Mac users up for a major upgrade.

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While I tend to agree with Monsoon regarding the value of support and communication, as a Mac user, I do have some concerns about paying 50% or more of the product price again so soon, given the lack of substantial upgrades since the Mac version was released.

I'm very happy that Mac 3D-Coat exists, and will support future development as well, it just seems a bit quick to hit Mac users up for a major upgrade.

In general upgrade price is just price of new features that can't be treated as a features for free upgrade. I am sure that volumetric sculpting and direct uv-pixels painting can't be free. And additional payment is only price difference, no more. And overall price is really not big for what is offered.

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In general upgrade price is just price of new features that can't be treated as a features for free upgrade. I am sure that volumetric sculpting and direct uv-pixels painting can't be free. And additional payment is only price difference, no more. And overall price is really not big for what is offered.
Understood, and I don't have a problem with paying for new features either. I guess I'd just like reassurance that after the initial buy-in (2.10) and serious upgrade (3), it will be some time (9-12mo) before subsequent paid upgrades.

Put another way, think of it as a request for some sense of total ownership cost over the 12mo period since Mac version was released?

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  • 2 weeks later...
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We have at worst a major two in one program - 3d painting and then sculpting ....

I was genuinely concerned how this man was making money, major FREE release after major FREE release ... and ONE guy ...

The program has GROWN GREATLY since we purchased two copies back when it was just $89. which was a give away price at the time anyway ...

Yet people here are disrespectful, cutting corners and overall IGNORANT .... Andrew, you really should not have to drop your price from $ 100 for upgrade ...

Alternatives for you naysayers .... wel go buy mudbox, bodypaint or Zbrush or use the free tools in Blender ... oh .. what uo say .. you can't get all those features in any one program like 3DC ... wellllllll

The progrm has appreciated in value long before 3 was known about ... I guess when your portfolios have been increased in value or you get a Phd and ask for a increase in pay rate you would not mind the same level of PMS bitching I see here ....

OT Great work Andrew .. really impressed so far .. Pitching your product wherever I could

Cheers !!!

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