Siggraph is here... what about R25 news?

#21

I’m now being reminded to pay my annual renewal/subscription – but I’ve not seen anything on R25 yet. So now it feels much more like payment to keep using the same old app, rather than an investment in new features and updates. September begins tomorrow – when are we going to see anything on R25? Still not sure C4D is worth the renewal cost; I could just stick with an older version.

#22

I’d like to see them switch over to a year as an identifier instead of Rxx, and updates should happen as features are added, and not annual or semi annually.

This will show the added benefit of the subscription, as you’re always being updated with new features.

#23

Nemetschek perpetual licences aren’t as cool as you think.
In many countries for example Archicad, Nemetschek offers zero, nil, no upgrade path. You want next year version, it’ll cost you the same if you’re a first time buyer or you’ve upgraded fifteen years in a row.

#24

I don’t think I ever said Nemetschek licences were cool! :slight_smile:

While these are imperfect perpetual licenses they are perpetual. My Houdini license is similar. I have 16.5 and unless you’re on the yearly upgrade scheme you have to buy a fresh license to upgrade. I was cool with that and planned to upgrade after several years because I barely scratch the surface of Houdini.

The upfront cost of HoudiniFX was more than C4D but over the lifetime I’ll use it it’s much better value since I don’t have to buy a lot of additional costly plugins which need paying for each year. I like being in control of when and what I spend money on.

Once people are forced onto Subs what’s to stop the upgrade cycle slipping from every 12 months to every 13 or 14 or 18 months but your Subs are due, like clockwork, every 12 months? Absolutely nothing!

I don’t believe we’ve yet to see the worst effects on the customer of the Subs gravy train. I’m fairly certain C4D will go the same way as Redshift and only be available on Subs terms maybe after a brief buffer period to sweeten the blow.

Maxon has begun limiting which versions of C4D are able to use Redshift, R20 support is about to be killed off so you can guarantee one day the last perpetual license of C4D will no longer be able to use Redshift forcing you to either use another renderer or join the Subs gravy train.

#25

Does anyone know which is the last version of C4D you can use without paying for the MSA/sub/whatever they call it? If R25 isn’t all that, I might just drop back a few versions and call it a day. As long as certain plugins work, I’ll be happy.

#26

The R versions so far are available as Perpetual, so you can still buy a R23, but not a S24. The status of R25 is unclear at the moment as it is not yet available at all.
However, if you don’t have a Perpetual already, you need to pay for the Perpetual initial price; you cannot up- or downgrade from a subscription.

Also, unless you have a Redshift Perpetual already, you cannot get any by now. At all. You will need to fleece the market for a renderer that is still available as Perpetual, or go with the built-in renderers.

#27

I’ve been on perpetual until the last MSA payment (I think). Don’t use Redshift and not interested in it; I use Octane instead.

#28

The last MSA payment gave me R21; that was when the subscriptions started. For the R23, I had to pay full upgrade price.

So, I guess you would stay on R21 and could be there forever. If you don’t like the online activation, you’d need to go even further back, R19 or something.

#29

I think the delay in relation to R25 and Maxon news in general is due to Apple event set for 14 September.
So i think there will be news by that time.
Which if true might mean that Maxon is attaching themselves even more to Apple.

#30

Announcing that you support Apple (M1, metal etc…) is one thing, delaying and aligning your whole communication strategy to coincide with an Apple keynote is another.

Unless one of the big features to announce is the support of something Apple doesn’t want to reveal yet, so they’re under embargo too… (new face capture? New viewport?)

Also, isn’t the September keynote usually rather about iphones and watches that Macbook and Mac Pros? (I’m not a Mac user myself, that’s what I heard)

Maybe one of their features just isn’t quite ready yet… Who knows…

What’s sad is that when they went to subscription, one of the arguments was that they could communicate more often about new features (because or Sarbanes-Oxley Act or whatever). But they’ve hardly ever been that silent…

#31

Same day, 14 September

The show kicks off on September 14th at 8:30AM PDT with Maxon CEO David McGavran providing company news and exciting announcements.

one of the arguments was that they could communicate more often about new features (because or Sarbanes-Oxley Act or whatever).

Thank God Maxon “operatives” stopped that BS argument. Many other companies had no problem talking about future products.

#32

The date of the presentations is nothing more than coincidence. Unless Maxon is going to announce C4D for iPhones there’s nothing that connects the dates. If there was any connection it would be made during the Apple announcement not before.

The Sarbanes-Oxley act was a tool Maxon used to hide behind, to prevent them exposing just how empty the development locker is running.

I seem to recall McGavran’s first presentation, he got overly excited about fleecing customers with the transition to Subscriptions yet could barely raise any enthusiasm for C4D itself. The ‘company news and exciting announcements’ are probably more ways to make the Nemetshrek investor richer, exciting for those making bonuses should that happen.

Keep an eye on the release date slippage, it won’t be long before two updates a years are seen as being too generous and a burden to development to be replaced by one annual update, all for your benefit of course!

If perpetual licenses are killed off on the 14th watch the use of language and how it is being done for your benefit i.e. to save development time being wasted on two different branches and it will allow more time for bigger :joy: updates. Whatever the story turns out to be, remember you’re being shafted for your own good!

I’ll be tuning in on the 14th, not because I have any interest in C4D but because I’m absolutely fascinated by the marketing language and what the next ‘story’ will be.

#33

There was an update to the EULA a day or so ago, with the R25 in the name, and the Perpetuals are still in there, so I doubt they will kill them off.

(You’re not gettng any support for the Perpetuals any more, but I don’t remember whether that is a new clause or has been in the previous EULA already.)

#34

What?! Presumably someone at Maxon HQ thought 6 months support for perpetual licenses was just far too generous? OMG Maxon you used to be held in such high regard, even by me.

I do think they’ll kill perpetuals like they did with Redshift with a grace period, so you’ll have until 2023 to own your software.

#35

Hmm, reading the subscription part of the EULA, you don’t get any support there either (§3.1). Only the “Teams” license models have support mentioned (§§4.2 and 5.2); otherwise, it is explicitly excluded (§1.6).

I am really curious now what the big announcement will be.

#36

They did not say “big” they said “exciting”…

#37

Being a cynical soul this is what I’d do if I was monetising support. I’d announce it, ‘We want to respond better to our Customers so for a quick and easy $99/yr you can have peace of mind that you can call up our Support Teams for same day support and get access to a range of 2nd rate tutorials for all your licensed products (that you could easily find on YouTube)’ .

Think of it as the opportunity to pay extra for something that was previously free or expected but it’s embellished a bit with extra crud.

Think of it as an Applecare equivalent but for software, you pay for something you don’t need but are made to feel it’s in your interest to pay it and anyone not on the ‘Teams’ support can take a hike, is says so in the EULA…

If I was running a business and was looking to extract value from every part of the operation it’s a logical step.

Paid support programs also drastically reduce the number of support calls/emails which is another reason why companies introduce these programs.

Not saying Maxon is doing this but the word ‘exciting’ really got me thinking about what excites a CEO more and it’s surely the thought of more money.

#38

I have no idea whether we need to interpret the EULA in this way. So far, I can only look at the pure source text. I don’t have the prior EULAs available to compare the texts, either.

But I can’t exclude your interpretation… well, we’ll see what the announcement will tell us.

So far, there are four levels of different support anyway (which the EULA doesn’t differentiate at all): Cineversity (which is now lost to me as I am a lowly Perpetual user, but it isn’t mentioned in the EULA by name at least); general user/application support (which I haven’t used in the past); development support through the PluginCafé (which I did use and which was really helpful over the years); and the “wishlist” form (which is pretty much a black hole as you cannot see what is actually picked up and developed). I don’t know what the EULA even refers to with the word “support”.

The most positive interpretation would be: it will be announced that Cineversity will be publicly available for everybody on YouTube (or Vimeo, whatever). This would be cheap to implement, take away a part of the criticism towards the late licensing changes, and maybe even attract some more users who can now see what can be done with C4D. The old Cineversity may get transformed into something new, maybe even under a different name. The direct support on the other hand… no idea how that will look or how the EULA wording comes into play there.

#39

When companies want to charge for things they used to give away free they change the name and they add a few extras that make it look sufficiently different to legitimise the cost.

Cineversity only covers C4D stuff, how about a new ‘xyz_versity’ which includes C4D, Red Giant and Redshift Tutorials, access to priority support for users, plugin developers and other must haves for the same super cheap price of the old cineversity?

Cineversity would then no longer be free to subscribers because it no longer exists, it’s replaced by something you have to pay for.

I worked for a US biomedical corporation that did a very similar thing with their support contracts. Their support division was a business unit in its own right and made vast sums, as much as the actual product division and often it looked like the product was just a reason to provide a support contract.

#40

The biggest update in years…is still yet to happen. This release makes R17 look like a monster Houdini release!

Headline release is an erstaz Blender UI. Honestly WTAF!