Lynn,

Hi! In regards to Vue4 Pro, I've been supportive from the beginning defending E-On on many issues because I thought most were knee-jerk angry reactions. Though now is probably not a great time to be asking about paying for tech support since there are still quite a number of issues with this newest piece of software - which.... I should add, has incredible potential and I'm looking forward to it being completely stable and reliable!

That being said, I personally am against a "pay for tech support" policy. My primary piece of software is Lightwave and I use it EVERY day, Sun. thru Sat., and Newtek support has always been free (AFAIK). I have used Vue d'Esprit mainly for background skies and I haven't found time yet to work with Ozone2. I have also purchased Vue4 Pro and my main issue with this software is that it does not yet import LW objects with textures in tact. The textures ARE there, but every one of them has to be resized. When you're dealing with a couple hundred textures that gets tedious VERY quickly. E-On tech support essentially said to "wait for the next patch and see if it's fixed." If this is what we would be paying for, it won't work. I think it might be a good idea if you were to spell out precisely WHAT a "Paid for Tech Support Program" would entail.

Lightwave has it's problems too, but they are not quite as abundant as Vue4 Pro is at the moment. I do believe that Newtek has a few more employees than E-On does, but that should not sway any argument FOR paid tech support. I have never used paid tech support and until it becomes mandatory, I doubt I ever will. I never base a project on software I am not familiar with. I figured I would learn Vue4 Pro and when it worked well-enough for me, I would include it in my list of software I often use - until then, it stays on the R&D shelf where when I DO find time, I work with it and try to find solutions to do something interesting. There are forums such as this that help others find solutions to their software problems and it will not be easy for you to convince users that paid tech support will work.

I apologize if I am completely mis-reading the question. Oftentimes things need to be spelled out for me - you may need to do so here! :)

Thanks!

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