3RD party marketing strategies.

[joseph alexander]

Considering the uproar in regards to the Next Limit Maxwell release date rollback, it becomes interesting to me to see how different companies deal with public relations. I’ve been a faithful Brazil user and have been waiting for them to release Brazil 2 for a long time; Brazil 2 includes irradiance mapping making it extremely desirable.

However, Splutterfish hardly releases any information in regards to B2. In addition, their support staff only hints at release dates but are so helping when you have problems, it’s hard to get too annoyed.

Ironically, as far as marketing is concerned, I think offering good service and avoiding releasing Beta versions has hurt them. The Brazil BB is very silent and who wants to try a free version of Brazil (rio) that hasn’t had any significant updates in over a year.

I hope that the programmers are sitting down every morning with lattes and weeding out every bug and making the software as solid as possible. Which has been Splutterfish’s identity: a very stable rendering solution.

I think that the secrecy is justified. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Brazil appeared to have the first Velvet and Glossy shaders on the market which where quickly adopted by Vray, Mental Ray and Final Render, and then refined. Now B2 has irradiance mapping.

It seems that the rendering market has become very cutthroat.

What are other people's opinions on how the Chaos Group or Cebas are run?

[Sawyer]

I have used vray for over 3 years and I am a pretty unsophisticated user. When I bought I could have bought anything, I chose vray because of the forum and the fact that vlado is there to answer questions. They are very behind on a new release but they are pretty upfront about it. To me they have established trust I have met Vlado and Peter at Siggraph I feel everyone there is working on the same thing - to get better illustrations.

 

Now to me much of this stuff is not "idea" but "math". These lighting methods are not intellectual property of these developers. They were implemented by programmers in a manner that works, and really each team is testing the waters for another teams product. It's more akin to long division than intellectual property rights.

[lambros]

As a maxwell user, I must say that I am a bit tired with the maxwell forum turmoil. Of course, Next Limit is to blame on that case. What more can I say? Things are self-explanatory. Their product though is like noone on this earth. That's why people keep bugging around maxwell.

As a vray user, I am very content with chaosgroup support. When I contacted them for support, they responded quickly and effectively. But I must say that I would really want to know about vray 1.5. It seems that all companies are too secretive about their products, and yes, it is becoming a cutthroat market...

[Ricardo Eloy]

One thing that no one is considering about this market is that they all tend to become stand-alone apps. That means a few things:

1- Independency from soft developers (they no longer need to release a whole new compilation everytime max, Maya or whoever has an upgrade)

2- They can achieve a higher level of stability, since they're not attached to a specific software core (and we all know how unstable they can be). That makes for more reliable products.

3- They will be able to broad their markets, since any studio (no matter which soft they might use) could addopt their rendering solution with little harm to their production pipeline.

4- They can charge more for a stand-alone app than they can for a plugin. That's the so called "perceived value". People definetly would pay 1000 bucks for a SA app, but wouldn't pay the same for a "mere" plugin.

No wonder why NL and ChaosGroup are targeting that market. And I doubt Splutterfish and Cebas aren't thinking about it.

That might aswell be the reason for all this delay in releasing new versions/updates. They now could be drooling all over the stand-alone app market, leaving little room for their current plugins.

The funny thing about all this is that not long ago we had stand-alone rendering apps such as Lightscape (which is my favourite), BMRT, Renderman, Arnold, etc being in the hotspot. Then, the plugins appeared (RayMax, finalRender, VRay, Brazil and some others). Now, again, they're becoming stand-alone... That's the Circle of Life... (I know, tacky quote )

[joseph alexander]

I wonder if AutoDesk is going to attempt to buy any of them...

I also wonder if there is a lack of programmers...

[Christopher Nichols]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Brazil appeared to have the first Velvet and Glossy shaders on the market which where quickly adopted by Vray, Mental Ray and Final Render, and then refined. Now B2 has irradiance mapping.

 

Actually is not hard at all to make a velvet shader. Simply putting a falloff map in the the diffuse will get you 1/2 way there. Glossy shaders have been around for a long time. 3dsmax even had it, even if it was unusable based on rendering times.

 

Features and gallaries is what lures people in. How many people bought Maxwell based on the Galleries? My opinion is, if you like the images, hire the artist, don't buy rendering engine. The Vray mat is super basic, and if you REALLY are into shading and lighting, that is its beauty. Maxwell is sorta in the same boat with their lighting method.

 

It seems that the rendering market has become very cutthroat.

 

I actually think it has gotten better from 3 or 4 years ago. There is more of a "mutual respect" going on as people realized the fights went nowhere.

 

What are other people's opinions on how the Chaos Group or Cebas are run?

 

Well Cebas no longer has slanderous ads talking about how everyone else sucks. So that is good. Looks like they have a good product these days. I hear Stage 2 is really nice. Last I used it was Stage 0.

 

Chaos is no longer offering "build du jour" and has locked down their features. It seems they are now focusing on the release of 1.5 who's primary difference from their latest build will be it's licensing. And they are shifting markets offering their first Maya build in beta, with standalone, xsi, etc... versions to follow. It seems they are no longer worried about other rendering engines having secured the market they were after.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Chaos is no longer offering "build du jour" and has locked down their features. It seems they are now focusing on the release of 1.5 who's primary difference from their latest build will be it's licensing. And they are shifting markets offering their first Maya build in beta, with standalone, xsi, etc... versions to follow. It seems they are no longer worried about other rendering engines having secured the market they were after.

 

..i think when we bought vray at v 1.09 a year and a half ago they were promising a free upgrade to v 1.5 when it was released. i wonder if that still holds.

[czoog]

..i think when we bought vray at v 1.09 a year and a half ago they were promising a free upgrade to v 1.5 when it was released. i wonder if that still holds.

 

 

Everything that has ever been said by chaos on the subject has been a resounding YES. Everyone will get 1.5 for free.

[Christopher Nichols]

..i think when we bought vray at v 1.09 a year and a half ago they were promising a free upgrade to v 1.5 when it was released. i wonder if that still holds.

 

 

Absolutly. When I was talking about was there there has not been a new build on their website for a long time. In the old days a new point release would show up every 2 weeks.

[moshenko]

Considering the uproar in regards to the Next Limit Maxwell release date rollback, it becomes interesting to me to see how different companies deal with public relations.

 

I think the most interesting thing to witness is how companies don't deal with public relations! As Joe knows, I've been a Brazil user for a long time and I can attest to their commitment to stable software and professional, prompt customer service. I think Splutterfish recognized from a very early point that the manner in which one deals with the purchasing public is very important indeed. While it frustrates me to no end that I can't get the information I want on future developments, I respect their commitment to service and their ability to stick to their gameplan.

 

I think Chaos desperately needs a good PR department, or at least a single person who knows how to properly deal with the flow of information. Take a look at the current discussion about their new licensing scheme (using dongles); it just kind of popped up as an offhand comment and started a barage of questions, assumptions, and arguments about its merits. To me, this is the kind of communication that can kill a company: offhand remarks spilled out at the wrong time, causing confusion and angst before anyone has really had a chance to explain the true situation.

 

Cebas' reputation for antagonistic marketing schemes really had a negative effect on me as a purchaser. Whether or not it was fully warranted, that reputation caused me to exclude them from my list of options a couple of years ago, and I've never really felt a reason to put them back in contention.

[Christopher Nichols]

I think Chaos desperately needs a good PR department, or at least a single person who knows how to properly deal with the flow of information. Take a look at the current discussion about their new licensing scheme (using dongles); it just kind of popped up as an offhand comment and started a barage of questions, assumptions, and arguments about its merits. To me, this is the kind of communication that can kill a company: offhand remarks spilled out at the wrong time, causing confusion and angst before anyone has really had a chance to explain the true situation.

 

What that?!? I don't work for Chaos, but have been a user for a long time. The issue of dongles has come up in the past. Also, the questions are normal, but no one seems upset at all about it. I don't see what you are talking about in terms people being upset out it. It did bring up a discussion which is a normal process of the forum. You statment nearly seems slanderous. Please don't confuse this issue.

[moshenko]

What that?!? I don't work for Chaos, but have been a user for a long time. The issue of dongles has come up in the past. Also, the questions are normal, but no one seems upset at all about it. I don't see what you are talking about in terms people being upset out it. It did bring up a discussion which is a normal process of the forum. You statment nearly seems slanderous. Please don't confuse this issue.

 

Whoa, time out I only stated that it "started a barage of questions, assumptions, and arguments about its merits", not that users were in a raging uproar Yes, discussions are a good thing, but my point was only that the information was released seemingly before it was ready to be properly discussed and that those types of actions can lead to disaster. I'm also a V-Ray user, so I'm speaking from my own experience about these kind of "announcements". I think that this is a valid point given the topic of this particular thread.

[Christopher Nichols]

Point taken... but I far from see a disaster in this particular situation.

 

On the other hand I do see a "problem" with Vray as far a business is concerned... It does not follow a capitalist model.

 

When they announced that they would release vray 1.5, the only features that they promised was displacement and distributed rendering. Well we still don't have 1.5, but we have displacement, distributed rendering, light cache, fast sss, physical camera, physical sun/sky, dome light with HDRI, vray frame buffer, and much more....

 

Users have not had to pay for an upgrade since Vray came out in March 2002.

 

I would have been on Vray 3.0 by now and made users pay for at least 3 to 4 upgrades... Adobe style.

 

But that is their choice, and it is not like it is "hurting" the users.

[moshenko]

Point taken... but I far from see a disaster in this particular situation.

 

I agree, not in this particular situation. It was meant as an example only.

 

On the other hand I do see a "problem" with Vray as far a business is concerned... It does not follow a capitalist model.

 

I couldn't agree more, especially with the ongoing "free" upgrades (and I'm the one paying the bills!). It makes my confidence level with Chaos much lower than it should be for something that I rely on so heavily at times. The bottom line is that a great product deserves to be great all around, both from a functional standpoint as well as a business one.