NewTek and eyeon Announce DFX+ Free with LightWave

[3danim8d]

Hi Chuck,

I just upgraded my LightWave 6.5 to 7.5 a few weeks ago for a specific job (which has now fallen apart), and am getting the 8.0 upgrade electronically, am I S.O.L. on the DFX+ deal or is there a way you can get me in on that too?


Thanks,


Jeff

[moovieboy]

...and that dull, metallic "clang" you hear over on that side of the forum is the Lightwave Mac community taking another tire iron to the back of the head... But take no notice, they're kind of used to it by now.:surprised

Sorry, Chuck, but what's the point of offering a deal that essentially says, "some Lightwave purchasers/upgraders are more equal than others?"

I checked eyeon's site, just to be sure, and I can't even find the word "Mac" there...

-Tom

[gametech]

The mac has shake.
the reason maya fusion is not made anymore is because there was no mac/linux support from eyeon. they always focus on pc.
I'm happy with digital fusion on pc, and if I had a mac I would surely use shake. It's very cheap on the mac

[policarpo]

well you could always buy a pretty fast PC for around $600 to run DFX+ on and use as a LW render slave. :)

or...get enough people behind the mission of getting Digital Fusion ported to the Mac. They recently released it on Linux, so it couldn't be that hard to port to OSX...

Hrmmm....it would be nice competition for Shake.:beer:

[Chuck Baker]

Originally posted by moovieboy
...and that dull, metallic "clang" you hear over on that side of the forum is the Lightwave Mac community taking another tire iron to the back of the head... But take no notice, they're kind of used to it by now.:surprised

Sorry, Chuck, but what's the point of offering a deal that essentially says, "some Lightwave purchasers/upgraders are more equal than others?"

I checked eyeon's site, just to be sure, and I can't even find the word "Mac" there...

-Tom

Hi, Tom!

Actually we think there's plenty of point to the deal and, please rest assured, it says no such thing as you suggest, intentionally or otherwise. A major point is simply that eyeon is willing to work with us to provide truly incredible special value offers. It is true that unfortunately eyeon doesn't do a Mac version. It is also worth noting that those Mac users who do not also have a PC or do not wish to acquire one to use DFX+ will no doubt be able to recoup a significant part of a LightWave full seat purchase by reselling the DFX+ seat; upgraders can probably recoup the price of this upgrade a couple of times over by that route.

The case may end up being that most LightWave Mac users choose to apply the value differently than most PC users, but they still get great extra value in this deal. $1785US in free software to use or resell as you choose is certainly not a "tire iron to the back of the head" by any reasonable estimate of the situation. I hope you'll take a moment to reconsider, and if so, perhaps you'll find that you agree with us that this offer was worth bringing to all our LightWave customers.

[3danim8d]

Chuck,

If I just upgraded my 6.5 to 7.5 and am getting the 8 'electronic' upgrade is there any way that I can get the DFX+ ?


Thanks,


Jeff

[Chuck Baker]

I've checked with our sales department, and the terms of our agreement with eyeon for this special offer would not allow us to provide it retroactively on purchases made prior to our announcement of the offer. Sorry I don't have better news for you!

[Howzat]

Wow, that sounds like a great deal... Is DFX+ a download as well? Would I need to worry about customs etc. being in Australia?

[Chuck Baker]

Originally posted by 3danim8d
Chuck,

If I just upgraded my 6.5 to 7.5 and am getting the 8 'electronic' upgrade is there any way that I can get the DFX+ ?


Thanks,


Jeff

While we are not able to retroactively add the DFX+ to a previous purchase, it is the case that we will not turn you away if you want to purchase an upgrade that you technically do not need in order to take advantage of the DFX+ bundle.

[Chuck Baker]

Originally posted by Howzat
Wow, that sounds like a great deal... Is DFX+ a download as well? Would I need to worry about customs etc. being in Australia?

DFX+ is provided as a packaged product, not via download.

[RobertoOrtiz]

Chuck thanks for the AMAZING offer.

I have been wanting to get DFX for a while now.


You guys rock!

-Roberto

[moovieboy]

Originally posted by Chuck Baker
.....It is also worth noting that those Mac users who do not also have a PC or do not wish to acquire one to use DFX+ will no doubt be able to recoup a significant part of a LightWave full seat purchase by reselling the DFX+ seat; upgraders can probably recoup the price of this upgrade a couple of times over by that route.

$1785US in free software to use or resell as you ...

Um, hold on. Is that enitrely legal/ethical to sell something I got for free? Is eyeon on board with the idea of people making a profit off of their good nature?:surprised

Look, I'm despite my initial "tire iron" reaction (which, I'm sorry to say, happens all too often in the Mac LW community)... I'm not trying to be a hardass about this.

I would rather that Newtek, instead of giving away something "potentially" worthless to a sole Mac user, would, say offer something comparable in value... training videos, other discounts, I don't know. I guess it's easier to say than to do, as with any business.

-Tom

[Meaty]

Originally posted by moovieboy
Um, hold on. Is that enitrely legal/ethical to sell something I got for free? Is eyeon on board with the idea of people making a profit off of their good nature?:surprised

Look, I'm despite my initial "tire iron" reaction (which, I'm sorry to say, happens all too often in the Mac LW community)... I'm not trying to be a hardass about this.

I would rather that Newtek, instead of giving away something "potentially" worthless to a sole Mac user, would, say offer something comparable in value... training videos, other discounts, I don't know. I guess it's easier to say than to do, as with any business.

-Tom

Tom, I think you would be VERY naive to think that eyeon signed on to this deal because of their "good nature." It's business bro. Excuse the analogy, but they want to treat their software a bit like crack... give us a taste for free, and we'll come back for upgrades. It is a long term strategy which will probably be evaluated for effectiveness over a 3 to 5 year term.

I have not read the terms of sales (legal stuff) for this particular offer, but if it is like most anything that you ever buy, it is subject to being resold, it is your property, if you win a car, you can sell it, ESPECIALLY products used in business production which often get sold to recoup costs once that product is not longer helpful, for whatever reason, to that business.

I had written a big section on this notion that, and yes it has been stated as this, "Newtek Hates Mac Users," but decided not to post it for fear of hijacking the thread to a discussion better left to a different thread. And I would ask everyone else to not head down that road here.

Aside from that, I am definatly going to order this package, gonna have to update anyways. I lub my lightwave.

/me waves to Roberto from Northern Virginia :wavey:

[moovieboy]

Originally posted by Meaty
...but, if it is like most anything that you ever buy, it is subject to being resold, it is your property, if you win a car, you can sell it, ESPECIALLY products used in business production which often get sold to recoup costs once that product is not longer helpful, for whatever reason, to that business.

I too rarely read every inch of the user agreements, but I think it's safe to assume you can't resell software the way you would a car. If that were the case, all we would need to do is buy ONE copy of PhotoShop, and then I "sell" it to you (getting all/most of my money back) and then you do it and on and on until we all have a copy and Adobe got paid only a few hundred bucks...

Even if I legitimately wanted to sell you my Photoshop, there's no way Adobe could verify that I didn't make a copy first, so why would they allow themselves to be vulnerable to that in the agreement?

So, regardless of eyeon's "intentions" for offering this deal with Newtek, I'm still curious about if it's right for me to resell their software at a profit.

-Tom

[Meaty]

It has nothing to do with User Agreements. That agreement is made when you INSTALL the software. There is NO user agreement when i go to CompUSA and buy software off the shelf. Used Adobe products are bought and sold all the time on ebay, it is perfectly legitimate. If Adobe cant verify that the software is uninstalled, that is their problem, not yours. One of the biggest deals you can get is people selling an OLD copy of adobe 4 with the upgrade to 7 at a fraction the cost of a full seat. We just did it at my office, saved about $400

It has nothing to do with morality. Profits are made based on the premise that you sell something for MORE than it cost to make or obtain. That is how people and business survive.

[mattc]

Rather than whining that 'Newtek hates Mac users" which is clearly not the case (LW is developed on OS X primarily these days IIRC), why not suggest to them something that can take DFX's place if they can swing it.

Put it this way, if they did a deal with Apple for Final Cut Pro and LW8 are the PC folks going to sit here and whinge that Newtek hates PC owners.

As for what eyeon gets out of the deal, well, if they manage to sell a bunch of packages because of it, good on them.

If Newtek and Eyeon integrate operations between Fusion and LW I'd be even happier. Discreet has Cobustion/Max, Avid has XSI and their NLE systems, so why not Newtek and Eyeon playing nice together.

Enough of my ranting ;)

Regards
Matt

[moovieboy]

Originally posted by mattc
Rather than whining that 'Newtek hates Mac users" which is clearly not the case (LW is developed on OS X primarily these days IIRC), why not suggest to them something that can take DFX's place if they can swing it.

Put it this way, if they did a deal with Apple for Final Cut Pro and LW8 are the PC folks going to sit here and whinge that Newtek hates PC owners.

First, I already suggested that Newtek offer something of comparable value...

Second, those of us in the Mac LW Community rarely state our case as "Newtek hates Macs," because we know that to be untrue... but at the same time, we would be kidding ourselves to ignore the plain truth that Mac Wavers get the short end of the stick far more often than their PC counterparts.

We begrudgingly accept it when it happens in the form of a lone programmer who creates a brilliant plug-in for the PC side and simply doesn't know how to port it over to OS X...

But when it comes in the form of something sponsored by Newtek, something that clearly benefits one operating system over another, you have to understand it makes some of us rightly grumpy...

Okay, enough of me ranting too. Flame off :D

-Tom

[mattc]

moovieboy,

Whether or not NT can offer something of equal value is highly dependent on whether or not they can find a company willing to do so. If that's Apple with FCP or Adobe with AE5.5 then great. However, I've seen people saying they should get a cheaper upgarde cause DFX is pc only. Umm, I don't think so.

The mac plugin issue is well, something to be expected at this point. Not everyone has a Mac and to expect every plugin to come in a mac version is probably a bit rich at this point. However, there are a couple of people around who will port plugins to the mac.
(Richard Brak comes to mind here)

As for plugins sponsored by Newtek, I was under the impression that the plugins that come with the OSX version of LW are now on par with the PC version (this is at 7.5.c). I happen to know that in the case of those omitted it was because the author(s) had long since departed taking his or her source code with him or her.

On a lighter note, the sooner they get rid of OS9 compatability the better it'll be for all. (They may ahve already for all I know).

Anyway, enough of this silliness. Time to go lie down, take my painkillers and get some sleep.

Kind Regards
Matt

[E_Moelzer]

Well movieboy, buy me a mac and I will love to make mac- compiles of our plugins. It is not hat we would not know how to do it, it is that we are affraid it would not pay (and we actually dont have the budget to go and buy one of those expensive macs, just because they look so neat)...
CU
Elmar

[Meaty]

OFF TOPIC

okay, what is with all the green avatars now? I miss something?

[Chuck Baker]

Originally posted by mattc
I happen to know that in the case of those omitted it was because the author(s) had long since departed taking his or her source code with him or her.


The particular programmers for the missing plugins had departed, but were not responsible for the code going missing - that happened after the departures in question.

[Chuck Baker]

Originally posted by Meaty
OFF TOPIC

okay, what is with all the green avatars now? I miss something?

What green avatars? :)

[moovieboy]

Originally posted by E_Moelzer
Well movieboy, buy me a mac and I will love to make mac- compiles of our plugins.

Um, couldn't you just borrow someone's mac?

It is not hat we would not know how to do it, it is that we are affraid it would not pay

Assuming you receive mac-requests for your specific plug-ins, I refuse to believe that it's cost-prohibitve to port a plug-in to a UNIX-based, X11-capable platform... or too expensive to find someone who could assist you...

and we actually dont have the budget to go and buy one of those expensive macs, just because they look so neat

You guys don't have US$500 for a used G4? If it's just for compiling, I bet you could grab something from e-bay for even less!

I'm sorry, but it sounds more like you just don't want to deal with Mac Wavers. Which is fine, since they're your plug-ins and you can do whatever you want with them.

Like I said, my grumbling stems from seeing something from Newtek that short changes a part of their community. I know Chuck disagrees on this point but, imo, telling a customer to just sell off the parts that don't work isn't really an optimum solution.:shrug:

-Tom

[Chuck Baker]

Whether this offer is or is not of interest is actually relatively independent of platform. There are Mac users who also have PCs, or are willing to acquire a PC to use a tool like DFX+; there are Mac users not interested in using PCs even to use something as cool as DFX+. It is also that case that some PC users love this deal and are anxious to get DFX+, and there are PC users who aren't interested in acquiring compositing tools. It's not of interest to everyone, but what is?

But we are looking for opportunities that would either be of interest regardless of platform, or even of interest specifically to Mac users.

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