Is Vray 3.0 affordable?

[Devin Johnston]

I'm sure most of you know that Chaos Group decided to end their unlimited render node license policy starting with Vray 3 and will now be charging you per node if you want to use network rendering. I just got my hands on the pricing guide and by the looks of it for me Vray just got 8 times more expensive. I seem to be in the minority when it comes to having a problem with this but I'm just curious now that the numbers are out is Vray becoming unaffordable?

 

http://www.chaosgroup.com/public_images/V-Ray-3-0-Pricing-and-Licensing.pdf

[Corey Beaulieu]

It definitely is more expensive, but with 5 Nodes for every 1 Workstation you are going to cover your farm system pretty fast. Then your price goes down by half and then you buy any remaining workstations you might need- for less than the previous price I might add.

 

Pricing is not exactly helping the little guy, for sure, but you have options to buy per workstation or per node or as a package that gives you 1 Work station + 5 Nodes. Also, you will be able to upgrade at a substantially discounted price.

 

I think you are over reacting a bit with the 8 times more.

Edited December 18, 2013 by CoreyMBeaulieu

[Devin Johnston]

Not really I have a render farm of 110 machines, it's going to cost me $7,590 more to upgrade to 3.0. Keep in mind that's the upgrade price if I were paying full price the cost would be $23,000, and there's no guarantee the price won't go up in the future.

[RyderSK]

7500 dollars for 110 machines (is that really not a typo ? if so..) is quite on the cheap side of things no ? I can't blame them for asking such price when every major competitor in their league (Arnold) is way beyond that. They did their math and made adjustments.

People are just complaining because it's a change from what it was... which was really non-standard from them.

I think at 110 machines nothing will be cheap.

 

For most people it actually is cheap, because the 1workstation + 10 nodes for 700 euros uprade covers almost 95perc. of scenarios imho. That's very fair price...

[Nils Norgren]

Not really I have a render farm of 110 machines, it's going to cost me $7,590 more to upgrade to 3.0. Keep in mind that's the upgrade price if I were paying full price the cost would be $23,000, and there's no guarantee the price won't go up in the future.

 

$7590 is all relative, not knowing the specs of your farm machines, assuming they are $2,500 each, then you have $275,000 worth of computers, to spend less than 3% of the cost of software to hardware seems like a good deal to get that kind of power. Not sure how many GUI licenses you have, but the 10 render nodes for 1 interactive node seems to be the best deal.

 

Think about a company with 50+ users for Adobe CC teams at $70 a month (they make you pay for the year BTW) $70 per month * 12 months * 50 users is $42,000, you can get a deal if you sign up for more than one year, you can negotiate, and get a break to take 3 or 4k off with a good vendor.

 

The VRay pricing change is unfortunate, but one way to look at it is, we have had a free ride so far.

 

-Nils

[Devin Johnston]

People are just complaining because it's a change from what it was... which was really non-standard from them.

How was it non standard they'd been selling it for at least 10 years that way, I'd say the reverse is true it's non standard for them to add cost to something that used to be free.

 

The VRay pricing change is unfortunate, but one way to look at it is, we have had a free ride so far.

 

-Nils

 

I know that's how many are looking at it but to me value has been lost for no other reason than the company decided they wanted more money. It may be the case that Chaos is having financial problems and realized that the decision to give out free updates over the past decade wasn't a good one. I kind of doubt this and I think it's more a realization that other less popular software's are charging for nodes and they decided to get onto that train. I didn't buy all this hardware overnight it's spread out over 5 years and the actual percentage of cost is closer to 23%. For the smaller freelancer this policy might not affect them that much but for those that have farms it is significant.

[Tommy L]

I have 13 nodes and I run 2 licenses of VRay (because I like having max on two machines both with VRay so I can work concurrently on 2 seperate projects) Im a little disappointed. However, it's business decision and they are a business, not a charity. Its just a cost Ill have to try to build into my pricing. Another boon to the pirate crowd I guess.

[RyderSK]

How was it non standard they'd been selling it for at least 10 years that way, I'd say the reverse is true it's non standard for them to add cost to something that used to be free.

 

It's non-standard in my opinion because none of their competitors ever did that and still don't do. They're competing almost solely against Arnold for market share, I doubt that they care in slightest sense over Archviz.

While it might have became strong selling point in past where they competed against Mental Ray node policy, now it backfired with angry past customer who did became slightly "spoiled" (it's in "" for right purpose, it's not insult to anyone, just no better word) because I don't think ChaosGroup wanted people to use it with 100 nodes (this also aplies to render farms, to which ChaosGroup is probably loosing quite a lot of money underservedly) Vlado have explained quite well why they can't afford this policy anymore, and it's exactly because of the free nodes. There's no secret motives behind it.

 

 

I have 13 nodes and I run 2 licenses of VRay (because I like having max on two machines both with VRay so I can work concurrently on 2 seperate projects) Im a little disappointed. However, it's business decision and they are a business, not a charity. Its just a cost Ill have to try to build into my pricing. Another boon to the pirate crowd I guess.

 

Your upgrade will then cost 1400, and will yield you 2 workstation licences and 20 nodes. That's not extreme either.

 

The panic on Chaos forum was altogether a different league. I am not even using Vray anymore but no one is forcing anyone to upgrade to 3.0 or use Vray at all. Other renderers will benefit greatly from influx of new users, so everything is pretty positive in the end.

 

And lastly, no, Vray is neither becoming un-affordable, neither is it more expensive. It's actually quite cheaper for most, and it's only more expensive, as rightly noted for small minority of users, minority that ChaosGroup probably was never happy about. The discussion on Chaos forum went for months, they're not changing it, so the discussion is obsolete.

Edited December 18, 2013 by RyderSK

[Nils Norgren]

I know that's how many are looking at it but to me value has been lost for no other reason than the company decided they wanted more money. It may be the case that Chaos is having financial problems and realized that the decision to give out free updates over the past decade wasn't a good one.

 

It is important to note that render nodes have ALWAYS been capped for Vray on other platforms. The Max version was the first on the market, and the unlimited rendering was a business decision made many years ago, (they have always capped the DR nodes).

 

Other versions (Maya, Cinema 4D, Sketchup, Rhino, Softimage) do NOT allow unlimited network rendering. Eventually the idea is (I think) that the nodes will be platform agnostic, your farm could render from any one of these host applications (this may be of little consolation, I know). As far as I know the Max version is still unique for now, but I assume they are working to bring them all into one core engine and rely less on the host software.

 

It must also come down to a business decision, they felt that the node licensing model they had left money on the table, there is no doubt that the marketshare they now enjoy probably has something to do with it, but now they are seeing what the market will bear under the new pricing scheme.

 

Who knows if it will have an impact on their share of the market, the difference in revenue vs the users that leave may be a wash, only time will tell.

 

We have a smaller farm than you, a quick calculation shows that the cost of power for our server room next year will outstrip the cost of the vray upgrade.

 

-Nils

[Devin Johnston]

Vlado have explained quite well why they can't afford this policy anymore, and it's exactly because of the free nodes. There's no secret motives behind it.

 

That doesn't make since to me, if they're competing for market share against a competitor that's more expensive I can't see how increasing their price helps them. If their goal is to sell more licenses they just shot themselves in the foot, the cost to buy new full versions of Vray is outrageous.

[numerobis]

Vlado told several people with bigger farms who complained on their forum to contact chaos directly - i think to get a special price.

And i think render farms have very special prices - if they don't even get their license for free.

So maybe you should write them...

[Devin Johnston]

It must also come down to a business decision, they felt that the node licensing model they had left money on the table, there is no doubt that the marketshare they now enjoy probably has something to do with it, but now they are seeing what the market will bear under the new pricing scheme.

-Nils

 

This is something Maxwell has been dealing with, they just reduced the cost per node drastically from where it was. Last year it would have cost me about $27K to upgrade my farm to the newest version of Maxwell, this year it's gone down to about $2690. They obviously realized the cost was prohibitive and came up with a much more reasonable model. Now Vray is going to find itself in even more competition than it was before, I think this was a bad move for them.

[RyderSK]

That doesn't make since to me, if they're competing for market share against a competitor that's more expensive I can't see how increasing their price helps them. If their goal is to sell more licenses they just shot themselves in the foot, the cost to buy new full versions of Vray is outrageous.

 

Because that customer is willing to buy it and it is still way more cheaper. What they did is both sound and smart. Look, I understand that you're unhappy but that doesn't make them idiots who don't know what they are doing.

 

Maybe if you look at price of Arnold and Prman, you would not consider the current Vray scheme "outrageous" either.

 

 

Regarding Maxwell. They have literally zero share or chance to compete up in VFX/Entertainment segment, so what they do is trying to survive. It's miles different from what ChaosGroup did.

[Devin Johnston]

Because that customer is willing to buy it and it is still way more cheaper. What they did is both sound and smart. Look, I understand that you're unhappy but that doesn't make them idiots who don't know what they are doing..

 

We don't know yet how many customers are willing to buy it and until you know that you can't determine if it was a sound or smart decision. I never said they were idiots they obviously know how to make one hell of a piece of software. I do question their decision to make this change and as a paying customer I think I have that right.

[Devin Johnston]

Regarding Maxwell. They have literally zero share or chance to compete up in VFX/Entertainment segment, so what they do is trying to survive. It's miles different from what ChaosGroup did.

 

That's not true either, Maxwell may be slower but it's defiantly able to compete with Vray in terms of quality. Next Limit made some serious mistakes with Maxwell but they've continued to develop the software to the point where it's feature set is very close to Vray's. Now with the price change people are going to start looking at it as a viable alternative to other more expensive packages. Chaos is still the leader but that's by no means permanent especially if they start making bad financial decisions.

 

Don't get me wrong I'm a Vray fan and I'd be more than willing to pay for upgrades instead of getting them for free. I just think this move is going to heart them more than it will help.

[Scott Schroeder]

At some point, these uber large render farms for most places are going to be a thing of the past. At least in terms of a lot of architecture places. Today only handful of computers can do what 10-20 computers could do just a few years ago. Unless of course you want a render farm that can get your project done before you can refill your cup of coffee. Which if you have one, can we be friends and can you loan me a few cycles on your farm?

 

Initially we were quite shocked at the price change, since we have way more nodes than Vray users here. But we really looked at our needs and we really don't need every single farm box to have Vray on it. For those rare occasions that we need a boatload of render power, we can send that out to an online farm. For us, getting 3 of the license +11 nodes covers about 99% of our yearly rendering need. We also looked at what it would cost to license the rest of the user boxes (which are so-so at best) versus just putting that money back into buying a few extra awesome with sprinkles on top render nodes.

 

Now, if Vray went to a per CPU licensing node (or Jeebus forbid per core) then I could see the need to light the torches and storm the gates.

[RyderSK]

Chaos is still the leader but that's by no means permanent especially if they start making bad financial decisions.

 

But they didn't make bad financial decision in my opinion and does sound pretty logical and sound concerning all the other things outside of pure Archviz. You're simply looking at through only yours perspective. Vray is competing on quite few very different segments of CGI market.

 

They're also leader at Archviz market only, which is like little poor brother to the whole CGI field.

 

That's not true either, Maxwell may be slower but it's defiantly able to compete with Vray in terms of quality. Next Limit made some serious mistakes with Maxwell but they've continued to develop the software to the point where it's feature set is very close to Vray's.

 

We missunderstood each other here, but true, I wasn't that clear. What I regarded about Maxwell, is not about Maxwell's quality at all, I didn't even commented on what I think of Maxwell as renderer (I like it a lot), but what they own as market share. They're simply very little player and they're not getting any big in VFX/Entertainment segment, which is almost a fact. This will hardly change.

 

"We don't know yet" I would wager to say they know this well. It's 160+/- (last I've heard) person large company now, I presume they know how to do their math for future growth. Giving medium/large studios free nodes where some competitors charge for EVERY licence (Arnold doesn't have a workstation/Node distiction) would be akin you giving every other image apart from first for free. They're not stupid, asking for nodes at price that is still much cheaper (and objectively, it is cheaper, not "outrageous" by any means) than their competitors is just fine for the type of customers they're aiming at predominantly. And hurting the freelancers or small studios, I don't think they're doing that either, as you can get 10-20 licences relatively cheap through the bulk packages.

 

Your case is just quite special and you're extrapolating your stance to whole customer base of ChaosGroup. And with that I disagree.

Edited December 18, 2013 by RyderSK

[Devin Johnston]

Juraj more money is more money whether your big or small and the simple fact is it will cost everyone more money to produce imagery with Vray 3. I'm sure Chaos has run the numbers but they have no way of telling how many of their customers will buy into this pricing scheme, there just guessing.

 

You are free to disagree with my point of view however just to be clear I don't believe my case is special nor do I think everyone agrees with me, obviously you don't. I don't think anyone is happy about this and my frustration comes from the apparent apathetic view people are taking. I don't like it when a company takes advantage of their users, that's how I see this and that's what I think there doing. Sure I'm free to use any software I want but I've built a business on the Vray backbone, it would be incredibly difficult and expensive to switch. Chaos knows this is and there betting that we as a community won't jump ship because of it.

[RyderSK]

Ok, I will then cease my case :- ) It was not my intention to persuade you to be happy with the change, I understand the frustration, but simply to communicate what they do is no taking of advantage of users neither a bad strategic move on their side. The numbers as I understand I from the pricing schemes, actually makes the whole Vray cheaper to everyone under

 

ChaosGroup did a great mistake (and admitted it much) on communicating this changes sufficiently and the bulk packages and special offers for people with higher number of nodes. But it's nothing crazy what they do.

 

the simple fact is it will cost everyone more money to produce imagery with Vray 3

 

No, it's neither fact nor true but I already wrote 3 times why. The pricing scheme (which is incomplete of custom deals they offer) portrays nicely how it won't make a difference at all to most of their customers.

 

And neither I think people were apathetic, I think the thread on ChaosForum reached past 30+ pages rather quickly and it was quite a drama.

 

Last disclaimer: I don't even use Vray now and have little interest in 3.0. But I am bit tired of the overly emotive and incorrect statements on Chaos's behalf, although its only their communication fault. Serves well to future that proper upfront communication is key.

Edited December 18, 2013 by RyderSK