New Maxwell licensing

[AJLynn]

Just got some email on this subject. They're making it more like Brazil. The email is verbose, so I'll summarize.

 

-Number of CPUs/Cores in your machine doesn't matter anymore.

-A Workstation license costs E895/$995. A Workstation can run any of the Maxwell software.

-A Render Node license costs E295/$395.

-People buying before the end of June get 3 free Render Nodes with purchase of a Workstation.

-People who already own Maxwell get their license translated into 4 Workstation licenses per old Maxwell license. Between this and the plusone thing, Maxer now has $768,000 worth of Maxwell licenses

 

They also put out a new features list:

 

XSi plug-in:

Alongside the release of Maxwell Render 1.5, a new plug-in for XSi 6 for both Win and Linux will be available to all new and existing users. In line with our policy to promote cross-platform use of Maxwell Render, this plug-in will be free to all users with standard Full licenses.

 

Shift Lens

This camera parameter allows users to shift the film plane up/down and left/right, without rotating the camera. This is very useful in architectural rendering for keeping a 2 point perspective while capturing the entire building in the image.

 

Blow Up

Render a specific region of an image at more resolution than other areas of the same image for added quality and accuracy.

 

Z Clip Rendering

This feature will allow cutting of the rendered object with a plane to show the interior of objects without the need to model the edges. Very flexible and very useful.

 

Vignetting

Vignetting is the darkening effect that happens on real world lenses, especially wide angle lenses. The amount of vignetting is controllable from the MXCL interface.

 

Improved log system:

Enhancements have been made to the log system within Maxwell Render with more data available to keep track of renders.

[Devin Johnston]

I'm glad to see that they have drastically changed their licensing poicy and expanded it to encompass different situations. I wish that this had been around when we originally purchased the licenses I would have gone in a different direction and wouldn’t currently hold enough licenses for 248 machines!

 

I'm also glad to see the addition of shift lenses, z clipping and vignetting. I wish that they had released a full feature list though; I don't understand why they are holding this information back. Having said that though I do think the 1.5 release is looking better.

[AJLynn]

I know - I'll have 8 licenses under the new policy, and my original purchase was one student license. I got a 96% discount, compared to the new pricing, and if I really wanted to I could use 64 cores. I guess I should stop complaining about Maxwell.

[buffos]

Sorry but i dont get it.

 

What has licenses issues have to do with the new version number.

So we have v1.5 to include all features promised in version 1.0

 

What a joke. Another release with a minimum of features.

So after 2 years they do include 2 simple camera transformations and the blowup feature that is "stolen" from fryrender.

 

They didnt even put displacement in.

As you can clearly see there is NO way we would get all features promised untill version 2.

 

And maxer... do you want the BAD NEWS? You did see the cheese but not the trap.

You now have 250 licences. Thats what they want. They are not stupid. They would not put ANY important features in the product , wait for v2 and then you would have to PAY for 250 licences upgrades.

 

So this is not as simple as it looks.

I guess rendernodes would be much cheaper in upgrading and you only need rendernodes not seperate licenses. But as soon as you would be in position to upgrade you will understand the trap.

 

For example if for License upgrade you have to pay 400E and for rendernode upgrade 50 do the math and you will stop beeing satisfied.

 

Ofcourse i cannot post those things in the NL forum, but even if i could they would erase them in 20secs....

 

You see i have never been wrong regarding to NL fiasco.

[Devin Johnston]

Buffos they haven't finished releasing all of the features for 1.5, this was just a partial list. Apparently we have to wait until mid May before we find out exactly what will be in this version so I'm hoping this is just a teaser and there holding back the really great features for the big unveiling.

 

Your point about the licenses is a good one but I'm not going to upgrade all of them to V2. I only have 150 render nodes so I'll be going with the new RenderNode license policy which will be significantly cheaper.

 

I think this is positive news coming from NL, at least they are responding to the competition that Fry has imposed on them. The adjustment of their licensing policy and the addition of some features that Fry has is a direct example of them trying to stay competitive. Now if only they would work on their customer relations.

[buffos]

I think i was not clear Maxer.

 

1)When you upgrade (even if you upgrade just for 150 machines)

you will have to upgrade 150 STANDARD LICENSES. Do you need 150 standard licenses? or just rendernodes and some licenses.

Why? simply rendernodes upgrade would be so much cheaper to upgrade.

 

2) Dont fool yourself. Dont expect important features not stated here.

Maybe minor interface ones. But certainly not core related.

 

2+ years and they cannot add displacement. Its pathetic.

Not to mention a pile of other promised features.

When they ask you for more money sometime next year remember my words

[Devin Johnston]

Yes I'm going to go with some full licenses and the rest would be render node licenses.

 

I agree that the chances are all of the "good" features have already been announced and that we're probably not going to get all of the good features that we want in this release. Having said that I can't help but have a little hope that we will get some of those mysteriously elusive features with this release. I guess we'll see what happens.

[renato]

I'm dissapointed too with the announces. They announced very small features in a long period, and this doesn't justify the shift to 1.5 version.

But my hopes that they deliver a great upgrade is the presence of fryrender in the market. That means competence.You know all fry features that are already working. If the next update turns to be a minor feature update, NL future will be uncertain.

Or maybe they have a bunch of impressive features under the sleeves, and they don't want to disclose info, for commercial purposes.

best regards

[AJLynn]

Actually, if it's as good as it ought to be (and considering how much time it's taken, and that they're being much more careful about releases than they used to be, it really should be) I'll consider 1.5 a major improvement. Sure, it's mostly fixing things that should have functioned better all along, but if they can make a real improvement to net rendering and memory utilization (and memory handling fixes almost always lead to speed and stability improvements) while including perspective correction, anti-vignette and camera clipping (which is IMO far and away the most important improvement here) then it's a significant improvement.

[Adehus]

Buffos makes a point, but I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. Somene who bought a license during beta now has 8 'workstation' licenses. Obviously all most people in that situation really need is additional render node licenses. I'd assume Buffos' point is that this would translate into having to upgrade 8 licenses valued at approx $1000 each when 2.0 comes out (as compared to upgrading 1 workstation license and 7 render nodes... presumably much cheaper).

 

To his point, it all seems pretty intentional, and therefore it's potentially not quite as generous as it might first appear. But I guess I personally can't get too worked up about it... after all, each license now works with one of my machines in it's totality (8 cores now plus whatever the future brings), and I can use many more machines than before. If they let us upgrade only the number of licenses we need, then I guess it's all OK. I have serious doubts about whether I'd even consider upgrading to 2.0 anyhow.

 

My real concern is whether or not 1.5 will be useable... the mac version has been a buggy pile of garbage. Will it work, and will the plugin work?

 

Regardless, it's always interesting to see how competition changes the playing field.

[Devin Johnston]

In light of the changes that NL has enacted since Juan took over I'd say that it's unlikely that this is going to be a bad release. That doesn’t mean that there won't be some bugs but I don't think we will have problems on the same scale as we did when V1 was released.

 

As for the license issue I would expect that NL would allow you to downgrade you full license to a render node license when it's time to upgrade. I'd expect to get a better deal when doing this as opposed to someone who is purchasing new render node licenses.

[lambros]

I am not that dissapointed with NL. They did have serious customer relation problems, but I got used to them. I bought a single license during the beta period, that was half price back then, around 500euros if I remember well, and that 500 euros bought me 8 workstations licenses in todays terms. Not bad. Although I must admit that I use maxwell in production during the last 6 months along with vray (mostly for exterior arch viz renderings), because of the max plug in bugs. Things are stable right now, so I feel quite confident with it. I have only 6 nodes, so I will upgrade 1-2 workstation licenses with 5-6 render nodes when the time comes.

[AJLynn]

I figure it's still in RC, and they're not ready to finalize the features list because there are things that aren't working well enough to release and they don't know what exactly will be working. Note that they also don't have a firm date - they're keeping the whole thing a bit flexible. Which is better than what they used to do...

[Devin Johnston]

In the past NL has worked on the release up to the last possable second and as a result the program has had lots of bugs. I'm hoping this time it's going to be different.

[Devin Johnston]

Juan just posted this.

 

Hi all

 

Yes, Win 64 and Linux 64 will be released with v1.5 (we have also tested Maxwell in Vista 64 with success). As soon as Leopard is released we will port osx to 64 bits.

 

Regards,

 

Juan

[Maximus3D]

The featurelist currently out is definately not the full final featurelist so don't assume that. There are more goodies to come for those who can be patient enough to wait for them..

 

/ Max

[Ernest Burden III]

-A Workstation license costs E895/$995. A Workstation can run any of the Maxwell software.

-A Render Node license costs E295/$395.

-People buying before the end of June get 3 free Render Nodes with purchase of a Workstation.

-People who already own Maxwell get their license translated into 4 Workstation licenses per old Maxwell license. Between this and the plusone thing, Maxer now has $768,000 worth of Maxwell licenses

 

I'm so confused.

 

Before this licenses were for all the various sub-apps of Maxwell, like the 'Studio' we didn't ask for. Now, you pay more for this. Or less, to have more machines to work with. OK so far. My two licenses became four licenses by being an early KoolAde taster/investor/valued customer, and now that four licenses becomes sixteen 'workstation' (a.k.a. single IP address) licenses. Meaning you would want as many cores as possible to get the most out of this scheme (or Fry's).

 

But now I've forgotten what the license scheme was before this. How did it work?

[u.biq]

i think it was one licence for four cpu , HT not counting

[Devin Johnston]

Yes originally in the Alpha days you had one license for 2 CPU's/cores, then it went to 1 license for 4 CPU's/cores. Then they had the +1 program and you got an extra license for every license you owned which in effect doubled the number of CPU's/cores you could use. Now they have stopped counting cores and CPU's and they only count machines so you could have a million CPU's or cores in a single machine and it would only take away 1 of the 4 total licenses you have when you purchase 1 Maxwell full license. That's very confusing now that I re-read it.

[u.biq]

even like that it is still under the licence policy of Fry render : 1 licence = 10 workstations (=10 IP, in fact), whatever the cpu/core number

[Devin Johnston]

So Fry gives you 10 IP addresses per license or is it 10 CPU/cores?

 

If they do give 10 IP's then Maxwell will eventually have to change their policy to meet theirs and from what we've seen they will most likely get around to doing it.

[u.biq]

10 IP, Devin, even if you have 80cores in one workstation

 

I think it should have torn apart NL's heart to do the new scheme so don't expect any quick improvement :p

[_PopArt]

I figure it's still in RC, and they're not ready to finalize the features list because there are things that aren't working well enough to release and they don't know what exactly will be working. Note that they also don't have a firm date - they're keeping the whole thing a bit flexible. Which is better than what they used to do...

 

Amazing. Honestly, if your release date is for mid may, and you dont have a finalized feature list for the end of april, well you are messed up to say the least. Only a kamikaze would do something like this. Having seen the RC fiascos from NL the kamikaze theory shouldnt be entirely excluded.

 

I think the 10 computers per licenses (without counting cores) is the best way to do thing with customers: Honestly the 4 cpus per license was totally insane (if it wasnt they wouldnt have changed it). So what is it now? 4 computers per license? Its still pretty restrictive, im not sure why everbody is jumpy for joy (ok its an improvement in any case).

 

The 1.5 new features i really dont find so amazing, I was expecting alot more,, its looks to me like a 1.2 renamed to a 1.5 due to time lag and competition. Unless of course they have decided to hide the 'big' feature list until the last minute (remember rc1)