Indigo goes commercial

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Indigo goes commercial // Roundtable

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Post by transient // May 2, 2009, 11:54pm

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This very nice unbiased renderer is now a paid for product. It will cost 300 euros at first, then 600 after a while. This has understandably caused some controversy. Personally, I'm surprised it took this long.


I had a laugh at one post on the blender forums, from a committed fan (over 10,000 posts) no less:


If 300 dollars is what it will take to get a full Photon Mapping intergration and other 300 for putting Large Scale Micropoly rendering into Blender then I would say I might actually go for that as it would help erase Blender's remaining weakpoints in rendering.


It's still a lot cheaper than paying for 3DS Max.


I will leave it at that. ;)

Post by RAYMAN // May 3, 2009, 12:53am

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Now that it costs some money it will be a lot better !;):D <------ get it joke:D

Post by transient // May 3, 2009, 1:53am

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Yes, I think it isn't a bad thing for Indigo, it was never open source. I wonder how long before Kerkythea goes the same way?


Hang on, I think I missed something.......

Post by RAYMAN // May 3, 2009, 2:03am

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Yes, I think it isn't a bad thing for Indigo, it was never open source. I wonder how long before Kerkythea goes the same way?


Hang on, I think I missed something.......


Even then I´d use Kerky !

Why ? because its a standalone UI just like the one you use for Maxwell.

Thats why I would also use Maxwell (if the price werent that high ..)....

I had to much trouble with broken and not updated exporters....

And that isnt a privleg of render engines same thing with material

exporters like symbiont....... new software no new exporters....

By the way does Vray have a standalone version with a UI ?

Post by transient // May 3, 2009, 2:49am

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Vray standalone is supposedly on it's way, although that's been the case for a few years.


Unfortunately, there are many in the open source scene who have a philosophical problem with paying for software, and will feel betrayed by this change. There are also some from poorer countries that can't afford to buy regular software, so I feel for them.


Indigo like Kerkythea was never open-source, so I'm not sure why this is so shocking, but I guess I'm not really an old-school Indigo user. At least their renderer still exists........


What this amounts to is another potential opportunity for Caligari.......that's if it can step up and fix the mess caused by the vray's cancellation.


BTW is the next patch still being worked on? We haven't been told anything for months now.

Post by v3rd3 // May 3, 2009, 5:51am

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I think Mr. Bones posted something about Roman being development lead for VE.... I suspect that will be his priority and that TS is dependent on 3p development to take it to the next level. The "patch" I suspect will be the next version which I doubt we will see for some time.

Post by Burnart // May 3, 2009, 12:30pm

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0 to 300 euro in one go? - hell of a price hike. Then up to 600! Transient I must be in one of those poorer countries you mention 'cause I sure couldn't afford that - hang on we're in the same country:D

Post by Finis // May 3, 2009, 1:41pm

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Just under about $400 and $800.

It could be a profitable investment for pros who need a super renderer if it is a good value compared to others by price and ability. You need a lot of ability or something specialized to compete with free.

What does Indigo have that will allow it to compete with Vray, 3Delight, Maxwell, and the free ones?

I can't afford it either. Of course I don't feel entitled to other people's work for nothing ... unless they choose to give it away.

Post by transient // May 3, 2009, 2:27pm

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0 to 300 euro in one go? - hell of a price hike. Then up to 600! Transient I must be in one of those poorer countries you mention 'cause I sure couldn't afford that - hang on we're in the same country


Heh...honestly I couldn't afford right now either, but at least if I saved my sheckles I would be able to one day. There are people who earn less in a month than indigo will cost, and I can see why open source software is a boon for them.


What does Indigo have that will allow it to compete with Vray, 3Delight, Maxwell, and the free ones?


Well, that was really my point. I think vray was a bargain. If it is truly gone, there is still a big opportunity for Caligari, a working 3delight plug-in would be killer. However, if Caligari expect these things to materialise out of thin air without their help, then unfortunately they will be disappointed - and so will we.


I think Mr. Bones posted something about Roman being development lead for VE.... I suspect that will be his priority and that TS is dependent on 3p development to take it to the next level. The "patch" I suspect will be the next version which I doubt we will see for some time.


I've honestly reached saturation with suspicions and guesswork. We knew Roman was now with the VE group a year ago. I need to know what is going on with truespace, some facts.


At the moment Caligari are playing dead, and I can't understand how this is possibly a good way to promote your software. It leads to assumptions that this software is on it's way out. Really, given the current malaise here, what else could be going on?


Only Caligari could answer that.


I'm not sure why they are so scared of this community, even bad news would satisfy most people, and would really help me and others plan their future. I'm working on a lot of things at the moment, it isn't fair to have $500 worth of gear collecting dust, and be left up in the air about whether it's a rotting corpse, or about to be revived and improved.


No other 3d company does this.

Post by parva // May 3, 2009, 10:01pm

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euro? I thought Indigo is a New Zealand product :D ?!


Haven't tested Indigo since a long time but I hope the render speed and materials are better as in the version I tested or Indigo can't compete with Maxwell and Fry.

210 hours for a picture I saw last time I visited the forum is way too much even if the render looked very good.


Anyway, I can understand why programers have the need to sell her product and I think the price is OK. Just not sure how many nodes you get and how long this license works. Lifetime license sounds strange, especially there the most profit is made by selling updates and further additional addons.


Well, will see.

Post by nowherebrain // May 3, 2009, 11:46pm

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Well, if not mentioned earlier by you(Transient)....lux is and always will be open source, like yafaAray....and IMHO is a better renderer. and shows more promise now that they have a new team member dedicated to "Blenderizing" it.(getting nodes etc working inside of blender).

Post by Burnart // May 4, 2009, 12:43pm

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Lux? Be a sport nowherebrain and send us a link. ;)

Post by transient // May 4, 2009, 2:40pm

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Haven't tested Indigo since a long time but I hope the render speed and materials are better as in the version I tested or Indigo can't compete with Maxwell and Fry.

210 hours for a picture I saw last time I visited the forum is way too much even if the render looked very good.


Anyway, I can understand why programers have the need to sell her product and I think the price is OK. Just not sure how many nodes you get and how long this license works. Lifetime license sounds strange, especially there the most profit is made by selling updates and further additional addons.


I think the idea is to have a two node license. And the lifetime upgrades are only for the first 100 purchases, pretty clever way to kick-start your sales.


I agree that indigo has a way to go to catch up to maxwell or fry, however I think that indigo was as good as it was going to get for free, so they have to charge money to get it up to grade.


Indigo have a very loyal community, I think they will be okay.


As for Lux, well I think it's pretty much the same as other free or open source efforts I've tried: decent, but far too slow, especially at quality settings. And that's if you don't consider the difference in quality to vray which imo is obvious.


Unfortunately, once you've driven a porsche like vray, it's hard to catch the bus.


When vray standalone comes, I think blender rendering will get a huge boost. It would probably be smart of chaos group to help with the exporter. I know some will object to paying, but when it sinks in that for less than a thousand bucks you can have archviz renders like max, I think it will become very popular.

Post by Jack Edwards // May 4, 2009, 3:06pm

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Here's the link for Lux:
http://www.luxrender.net/

They do have an SDK. ;)
I have a feeling that if I don't do Kerkythea next, Peter will kill me though... xD
:D

Post by RAYMAN // May 4, 2009, 9:22pm

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I wont kill you pal but I think the people dont want just the option of unbiased renderers . To get good results with these you need hours

not minutes..... plus Kerky has got instancing which isnt bad to have....;)

Post by parva // May 4, 2009, 10:33pm

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To get good results with these you need hours

not minutes.....


Not definitely ;) , outdoor scenes or scenes with just a hdri environment can be very fast to render. Of course all depends on things like scene geometry, complexity of materials (layered materials) or other effects like Displacement.

Not to speak that you don't need to fight with light leaks & splotches and no need to set hundreds of adjustments like quality settings and antialiasing. Those don't exist :)


But agree there are situations where a biased rendered is still the better because faster choice.

Post by transient // May 5, 2009, 3:07am

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I think to use something like fry or indigo I would probably take the option of using the ranch, or something similar (although you can do vray renders this way, too). So perhaps for commercial work speed isn't necessarily a huge deal for indigo, fry, maxwell etc.


I still await with interest what Caligari does about ts's lack of a renderer. Open source isn't the way forward imo. Blender will always have better integration and support, as nowherebrain pointed out.


Not saying it isn't good to have the option, but it's no replacement for vray.


I can't wait for 3delight to get upgraded. :cool:

Post by nowherebrain // May 5, 2009, 7:34am

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I'm more a biased guy myself(animation + speed)..I do see the beauty in unbiased, but I also see many drawbacks...a hybrid approach is what I would love...do x samples and use samples to interpolate the GI into the render.

Post by Rafa // May 5, 2009, 7:48am

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Here is another free render engine:


Sunflow

http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/


And a little obvius Povray

www.povray.org

Post by Burnart // May 5, 2009, 1:04pm

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Lots of free things out there it seems, but the real question is what works with ts!? Not much - despite the efforts of Jack and others who appear to be doing more than Caligari in this regard. As impressed as I am with what the forum members have done its still essential that an "official" renderer gets attached to workspace. Lightworks always seemed the obvious solution not sure why it was not done at the outset. Admittedly its not in the same league as VRay et al but it would be better than the nothing we have. (Yes I know we can cross the bridge and render from modelside but it is limited and problematic once you get into the animation tools of workspace.)


The really frustrating and depressing part is that we seem to have been having this conversation since vers 7.0 first came out - how many years ago was that?


BTW I'm with nowherebrain unbiased is nice as an option but a fast hybrid would be my preference also. I'm more interested in animation than static images and many hours per frame is not my idea of useful.

Post by transient // May 5, 2009, 2:08pm

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Well at this stage an upgraded version of Lightworks would be nice. It has history with ts, is very flexible and good, and would differentiate ts from other apps.


I think the level of unofficial work done on truespace is outstanding. Compare this with carrara where you have none, except people trying to flog pre-made shaders in the store. The plug-in culture with 6.6 was pretty amazing, too (most of the tools I seem to use in modeler/ 6.6 are plug-ins).


However, it is impossible for any plug-in developer to know right now whether they are wasting there time. Will their hard work suddenly appear in the next patch? Does truespace even have a future? Where are the users? I wonder whether it was this uncertainty that alienated the original plug-in crowd.


This is an aspect of truespace that is being wasted imo, through indifference and a stubborn lack of information on truespace's current status - like what the hell is this program even for anymore? Does anybody really know?


Autodesk gets this right. They wait to see what plug-ins are popular and often integrate them into the main app. The latest version of max did this with polyboost. Everybody wins.

Post by nowherebrain // May 5, 2009, 7:48pm

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Sunflow is dead...sorry.

I agree with upgrading the lightworks renderer....built in GI, and possibly better know by the devs internaly.

Post by Burnart // May 5, 2009, 8:38pm

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If only we knew what was going on - beginning to sound like one of the other threads going at the moment.


Well Jack has the Yafaray thing going on - Simon had/has 3delight at least on the modelside (not sure what's going on there as we haven't heard anything in ages) - wasn't there a kerkythea plug in development or is that high on a wishlist? Indigo going into high cost mode is a fly in the ointment.

Post by Nez // May 5, 2009, 10:15pm

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Burnart - yes, Jack was intending to do a Kerky plug-in/exporter but has gone with Yafaray first. I think it's still on the cards, but he's got a lot on...


I agree that keeping Lightworks going forwards seems a no-brainer - a significant proportion of tS users are already used to it and it's ME, and the latest version is pretty impressive looking... would seem to be sensible to include some form of LW as a minimum moving forwards if you want to keep some of the older user base unless you bundle in something more impressive....

Post by Jack Edwards // May 6, 2009, 4:05am

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It's still on my to-do list. ;) I put it off and did YafaRay first because there's already a working pipeline to Kerkythea vis 3ds export. Though I understand that you guys need the plugin to do animation, and it would be cool to be able to setup the materials and lighting inside of trueSpace.

Current goal is to get the plugin developer community website I'm working on up first though. After that I've got a few quickie plugin ideas that should only take a couple of weeks to implement.

Need to squeeze some training video production time in there somewhere as well...though :o
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