129 replies to this topic

[Digital777]

While i don't like to keep paying for updates for the software i own i understand that the developer needs to earn money from this and also the amount of work that must go into this. This is a great app and it can already do a lot of things so it is worth the price and also cheaper than many other apps as said. The fact Zbrush gets free updates is not that good of a point as first it costs more and there has been many free updates for 3DC and it's always getting cool new stuff so it will grow in features over time.

For this though Andrew said it would probably be a plugin and maybe even get released free for customers. If it was a plugin it would be optional also so you would only get it if you needed the features but tha main app would probably get more free updates still untill the next major release.

For training there is the Tutorials area, Video Manual and wiki so quite a lot of stuff. The main thing i don't see for 3DC as much as with ZB is the walkthrough type stuff but often those don't show how things were done fully but people are starting to do this more here with progress stages images and tips etc. With 3DC/voxels though it's mainly just needing to know how to use the tools which is done quite well already and a good understanding of art/sculpting though as it's mainly down to the users skills also.

[pbowmar]

I think everyone's threshold for cost is different depending on how they use the software.

If it's hobbiest use then any cost is "expensive" except of course people pay $1,000's on their hobbies so why not software?

From a professional point of view, $200 is virtually free. We pay $50k or more _per year_ for Maya, Houdini, Nuke etc maintenance. Money well spent since it means new updates to the software, bug fixes etc.

I find 3DC a much better deal than Zbrush because even though the ZBrush updates are "free" they're often useless, from a professional point of view. Andrew has been very responsive to user's needs both feature-wise and also the "boring" tech stuff that professionals need. Pixologic, not so much.

From a hobbiest point of view, I like the low cost. From a professional point of view, I'd like 3DC to be more expensive so Andrew can hire a bigger team and get more done faster That's really what it comes down to. From what I've seen Andrew is an insanely fast coder, but he's still human and I bet his wife and kids like to see him occasionally

Houdini have a great solution to this: For hobbiests they offer Houdini Apprentice HD which is their non-commercial version but at full resolution, with access to the Amazon Render Cloud. It's $99.

For professionals, they offer $2k or $7k versions (like Maya complete and unlimited) which lets a studio only buy what they actually need.

Anyway, I'm not picking a fight here, I think everyone's opinions here are valid but selfishly, I want more faster and am willing to pay for it

Cheers,

Peter B

[Amber]

BodyPaint was expensive as a standalone. They incorporated it within the C4D, and that forces you buy the base version whether you want it or not...Deep Paint is what I used...they have all but abandoned it...never had any video tutorials. And it no longer works with Vista or Win 7.

You may not think 3DC is worth it, but ZBrush is $600: http://www.pixologic.com/store/ And Mudbox is $750
If you need a serious 3D Painting application that has top shelf UV layout tools and approaches ZB and MB in sculpting ability...3DC is a heck of a deal at half the price of ZB.

595$ is official price but it is being sold by their official digital etailer for 510$, so if 3DC is priced to 300$ or more it's less than 200$ difference.3DC approaches ZB/MB in sculpting ability but the problem is voxels are nowhere that useful like ZB/MuD polygon sculpting and it's faster on most computers and they can do polypaint and hell a lot of more.
3DC is worth if you can justify buying it, but many people won't be able to justify buying both.

You guys bought your 3DC for 70$ or 130$, didn't you ?

[philnolan3d]

595$ is official price but it is being sold by their official digital etailer for 510$, so if 3DC is priced to 300$ or more it's less than 200$ difference.

You guys bought your 3DC for 70$ or 130$, didn't you ?

Actually if you want to talk about discounts you could buy 3DC during the 30 day trial and get $50 off, bringing the price down the $250 (currently $235)

I bought in at $70 originally.

[Lafs1984]

I fail to see the logic reasoning why people would not want this type of tech in 3DC. It shaves hours of work and improves the quality for all who do texturing, and then you wanna sell that as a separate module ?!

/ Magnus

Just wanted to second that opinion in my view it would be against 3dc best interest to make people pay for another module ...worst comes to worst make the price of the soft a tad higher and put everything you can in because a tool like that well integrated can make a huge difference on the user base numbers especially at this time where very few quality tools make use of this and it is in the forseeable future that this way of painting will become the norm

[AbnRanger]

595$ is official price but it is being sold by their official digital etailer for 510$, so if 3DC is priced to 300$ or more it's less than 200$ difference.3DC approaches ZB/MB in sculpting ability but the problem is voxels are nowhere that useful like ZB/MuD polygon sculpting and it's faster on most computers and they can do polypaint and hell a lot of more.
3DC is worth if you can justify buying it, but many people won't be able to justify buying both.

You guys bought your 3DC for 70$ or 130$, didn't you ?

Nope...I bought 3DC right after v3 was released. And I primarily bought it as a 3D Painting replacement for Deep Paint 3D (which is essentially dead as they aren't supporting it). It was well worth it just for that...and now, the UV layout tools make it even more so. That's not even mentioning Voxel Clay sculpting and such. So...you're trying to compare it to ZBrush based on sculpting, but that's not an accurate comparison. 3DC is first a 3D Painting application...and in that capacity, is heads and shoulders above ZB and MB. Therefore, your comment about the price difference is only relative to less than half of the toolset.

[Digital777]

One reason i got 3DC was the price point. Being mainly a hobbiest artists i second what people have said about that it can be a bad thing when prices keep going up. I have some software and even though they are great i cannot afford to keep updating them as they keep putting the prices up a large amount each release etc, this i do not like and when i buy apps i usually go for the lower priced things.

This is the reason i like 3DC a lot is it's affordable yet still offers very powerful features for my art, the softwares at double the price+ i would rather just buy a new laptop etc with the same amount of money. The point i guess im trying to make is there should always be a max price point (around) for some things rather than just going up and up as then it cuts out a lot of possible buyers when that happens. So with features like this if it is ever going to boost the price a great deal i like the idea of plugins as it's a optional thing rather than increasing the amount of the whole package.

To be honest though im not sure why the topic has gone this way, it was on topic then now it's about software prices even though nothing has been said for definate yet. Andrew even said that this could even be free and would possibly be a plugin (so a optional buy if it had a price) and theres been many free updates. Nothings official yet as far as i know so lets get back on topic

[GED]

I thought this was a discussion about Ptex not about price points, besides we are just end users what right do we have to discuss business strategy?

Im interested to see how ptex would work, especially how well it would bake to a lowpoly model??

[AbnRanger]

I thought this was a discussion about Ptex not about price points, besides we are just end users what right do we have to discuss business strategy?

Im interested to see how ptex would work, especially how well it would bake to a lowpoly model??

It was a response to Andrew's mention of adding it as a separate plugin, or making it free to current license owners.

[splodge]

So what does everybody think of the new ipad from Apple?

[3DArtist]

So what does everybody think of the new ipad from Apple?

Does it support Ptex?

[philnolan3d]

My very first experience with Ptex has been awesome if you haven't tried it yet go run do so now!

[Taros]

The ptex texture res is currently not scalable. So the ptex alpha version is nice, but not more. OK, a little bit more: It's really fast to paint.
But I am very curious, nevertheless.

[philnolan3d]

Sure it is, I'm doing it right now.

Just click here:

[stevecullum]

This is cool!

It would be nice if there was some visual feedback when the res was increased or decreased. When it does come to creating an export and baking what there is to UV's, it would be good if 3D Coat could auto magically determine the map resoultion required to preserve the details. Either that or create a set of plugins for apps you want to support - which could be a useful way to hook in a few more customers.

[Jake_H]

Looking forward to having play with Ptex - such speed on implimenting this (key) feature - Cheers

[ggaliens]

Wow ... cool. Way to go Andrew. I've been a HUGE PTEX (Texture Atlasing) fan my self, having
written a texture atlasing plugin for Wings3D in the past. I lost interest in it when I
started doing geometry plugins.

Seems like a better fit in your 3DCoat app.

[pbowmar]

Very cool to play with Ptex! It seems very promising.

I'm most excited about getting it in Per Pixel mode with loaded .obj files since that's the majority of the stuff we'll use it for. I'm also very keen to get the native .ptx export so I can render it directly in PRman (for example).

Thanks Andrew, it's very cool getting this power feature so fast!

Cheers,

Peter B

[Taros]

Sure it is, I'm doing it right now.

Just click here:

What?! Have't seen this icon before.

[philnolan3d]

I didn't see that icon at first either. I'm actually just now uploading a video showing it's usage. I'll post a link when it's up.