Connie Jacobs

First off, I apologize for offending anyone here at CGArchitect. I believe my comments were misconstrued. I visit this forum on occasion to see what people are doing and saying. Almost every time I have come here, I do a search on brazil and fully 70 to 80% of the posts come from people using the crack of brazil. I see them ask and get support and complain of bugs that I know to only exist in the crack. I've seen several professionals post images in the gallery created by the crack, even listing their client's name with it. I know you all want to believe that most CGArchitect registrants are above this and most probably are, but most of the posters that post about brazil are using pirated copies. It's simply the cold hard facts. Last night I visited the forum and saw more of the same. If you walked a week in our shoes you would understand our frustration. When I saw the original post to this thread--a nice image by a new customer I thought, how delightful. But as is common here, the followup posts turned into a vray vs brazil thread. I mean, here's nice image and the guy is asking about other brazilians who are here and it turns into a "brazil is too slow" discussion. It was insulting to the artist as well as the other brazilians who lurk here (and there are hundreds of them as I see in the studio listing). I mean, if I used brazil, why would I post anything here? Why would I ask advice or seek contructive crits if it's only going to turn into a vray thread? I apologize to Rick in particular for giving the impression I thought he was a pirate. That was bad judgement on my part. I was mixing my sadness of the artist's topic getting derailed as well as the frustration I felt from my seeing the rampant piracy on the forum just before I read this thread. I shouldn't have done that. I do stand by the fact that the public test is not a legitmate way to test 1.0. As for evals, we've set up 30-day evals for almost anyone who emails us and asks for one. If some have not received a reply, I apologize. We get hundreds of emails a day and some may slip thru the cracks. I encourage you to try emailing sales@splutterfish.com again if you have not received a reply. We have not set up a publicly available full-featured demo for many reasons. We are still a small company and as such we do not have the resources to manage this currently. Brazil is one of the most popular max plugins out there. A demo requires special license code, and a support system that allows us to help and focus our attn on serious inquiries while not inadvertently wasting our staff supporting pirates. I think it's fairly common that as a product gets more differentiated, public downloadable demos are less common. Most of the professional development tools I use that are in a similar price range also require that I register with the company first before a trial is given. Our current system is if you get an eval thru splutterfish, you get the full attention of a registered user for 30 days. And this no small thing. We're offer more than the standard web board support. We have helped people at all hours of the night, even weekends when rendering emergencies arise (license server craps out for instance). We've looked at files and given personal online training. This is why we don't simply put a link and say, "download, you're on your own." If you find your work is better suited towards one tool or another then by all means, use that tool. Most professionals however, will find that they need one tool for one job and another for another job. I stand by the fact that Brazil can handle those more challenging projects better than any other renderer (high poly, animation, realism, special lighting, etc) and as one gains more experience with Brazil (use of photons, accelerators, custom shaders, etc), it can easily be used for fast everyday-work as well. Brazil can cover the full range of needs. But I understand, it's not for everyone and luckily unlike a short time ago, artists have choices. Connie Jacobs SplutterFish PS.... On a personal note... The other partners of Splutterfish come from a film/broadcast background and Brazil is borne from that mindset. When we first started selling the Brazil pre-release, we were surprised at the number of arch viz guys who bought. I got to know several of them quite well, worked with some of them thru the beta, solving problems and such. I developed a strong feeling for these people and focused on their needs. The irony is that I have always been the champion (and continue to be) for the arch viz community at SplutterFish--pushing for features and bug fixes that virtually only benefit the arch viz professionals. One guy mentioned that I should listen to the criticisms (the valid ones). Well I assure you I do and I act upon them. So perhaps this is why I am taking this stuff personally and I know I'm smarter than that. [ May 21, 2003, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: Connie Jacobs ]

Since I don't see some of you in our client database, perhaps you are using the Brazil 0.4.53 public test version to form these opinions. This would be unwise since the pub test is not the Brazil 1.0 full-featured version and does not contain but a fraction of the features. Spreading this kind of misinformation about the commercial product based on the public test helps no one. ---- temporary aside.... --------------- A lot of people in this forum post opinions based on crack software. Please know that the hackers introduced bugs and performance problems that a legit version of Brazil does not have. That's the nature of crack software and it hurts everyone, especially hard-working, software craftsmen who spend years researching, designing, coding, debugging, modifying, adding, and refining their work--much the same sort of process as an artist, only to have it stolen and distributed instantly to every corner of the globe and criticized for bugs a non-hacked version doesn't have. ------ aside done... -------------------------- We have arch viz guys write us daily thanking us for the artist-friendly interface that frees one from the clunky constraints of other software packages. You can simply work (adjusting lights, cameras, etc) naturally, without the software UI getting in the way and they behave how you expect. You can undersample for extremely fast test renders to get where you need it and then have confidence when you render the final it will be predictable and look as you expect. It's so predictable that you can make 11th hour changes with picky clients and not have to relight or reset your whole scene. And, yes, Brazil has tons of controls (much more controllability than other renderers) and SplutterFish offers several tutorials, docs, 1.0 web forum, live online staff support etc, to learn how to use them. Brazil is not a designed to be a one-click solution that produces generic results. You can control almost every aspect of your render if you want. But just because Brazil offers you the control that no other renderer does (and I say that confidence), you can get great results on day one with it's logical default settings. Brazil grows with the artist as far as s/he wants to learn its capabilities and push it to the highest levels of realism or desired style. And I don't think I've ever seen more beautful images than Brazil images. Performance/Quality ratio. Brazil can be very fast if you just need everyday results. If you try to learn how to use it for this with a buggy crack then yes, you'll blindly crank up the settings too high or not know how to use the high performance Brazil materials, accelerators, etc, and then blame the software when in fact you don't know what you're doing. Vray is a great renderer for your fast-turnover, bread and butter stills, and I think an architecture firm would do well to have both vray and brazil in their arsenel. But they are NOT the same. When you need to produce complex animations, or the flexibility to achieve a particular style (watercolor for instance) or to push the quality level to photoreal where the clients need to see exactly what something is going to look like (as much as possible in CG anyway) then in my opinion, there's no choice but Brazil. It is simply a more sophisticated tool. With Brazil you don't need to hit that "it just won't get that final look I want no matter how much I tweak" wall. By the way, to the original poster (and to other registered 1.0 brazilians), if you want to talk to other arch viz guys using Brazil 1.0, the 1.0 forum is a great place to start. If your Brazil is registered to your company, then let us know and we can set you up a separate login. As far as setting one up here, we'll leave that up to Jeff. Sorry this sounds like an ad for Brazil. But when I see misinformation being spread by dubious Brazil users, then someone needs to set the record straight. Connie Jacobs SplutterFish, LLC [ May 20, 2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Connie Jacobs ]

Ras, In the future, if you are a registered user of Brazil 1.0, I suggest you use the Brazil 1.0 support channels, especially the real-time online support system that is staffed by very experienced Brazillians. This is very helpful for quick answers to your questions. As a registered owner you should of course know how to access these support channels. Connie Jacobs SplutterFish, LLC