Attached Link: http://nwda.webnode.com/buy-tg2-objects/

My name is Frank, and I am the instigator of a small but fine website, with a small but dedicated team of people, who primarily create and offer advanced preset products for Terragen 2.  The site is usually referred to as "NWDA" (which stands for New World Digital Art).

I understand that this part may not capture your interest, but we have also started to offer pretty high quality vegetation objects through our site - made by an extremely proficient Xfrog modeller. For the moment, there are three Grass packs available, which you might be interested in, as they are also containing the models in the OBJ format and are high quality to a degree that they can hold up even for close-ups. This portfolion of vegetation objects will grow in the near future, and generally expand over time.

Here is a link to the page with the objects: http://nwda.webnode.com/buy-tg2-objects/
I would be interested in hearing your feedback from you about these vegetation packs, and of course about if there's a general interest in products like these in the Vue community.

Many thanks in advance,
Frank

PS: I have an image attached as an example for grass pack 3

Walli's the best, of course, and he sells fantastic stuff at Cornucopia3D... in the Vue format.

Thank you Brunoy. As I wrote, I am trying to understand the requirements and interests of this group, so I appreciate your reply.

These particular packs, though, are not available at cornucopia at his point, and I believe we have a pretty good price point for these. The grass packs for example sell for 3.99€ and 10.99€ for private use, and commercial use respectively, and contain 8 model variations each. As obj, they're not locked to be used in just Vue, so that could be a positive aspect as well.

It's imaginable that we create dedicated Vue variants as well. How important would that be with regards to their attractiveness?

Thank you,
Frank

Selling at 2 different prices for an item depending on it's use would be a big turn off for me!

I may buy an item and not use it for Months or not use it in commercial stuff for a few Months, if I bought one of yours at 3.99 and then used it in a commercial image that could mean bother for me, there are no such restrictions elsewhere, maybe you should re-think that pricing startegy, for me that is enough not to buy from you!

Agree with thefixer here, after you bought many items, how do you remember which one you can use commercially? The readme? I've never seen such differenciations in 3D objects, though e-on is pretty inventive in this field....
I think Vue users would want the ability to have the object in the software they use. OBJ doesn't always translate well into Vue, depending on the export options from the original format. I know there won't be any problem with Walli's work, but I doubt he'll be the only merchant.

Hi -

Thank you for sharing. Walli is great, but I agree about the pricing. What if you use something privately and then the image goes commercial? Also, I couldn't and would not want to keep track of two prices for objects. Other sites such as Cornucopia3d don't do that. I would rethink that concept especially since there are a lot of models already available.

Good luck.

Hi again,

I am aware that the concept is unusual, but so far it has actually been pretty successful and here is why:
What you would do to make it work for you as a professional artist is look at it from the other direction. Think that the professional use prices are the ones you should consider when you are a person who creates commercial work. Not necessarily for the next image or animation you make, but if chances are that you will use thes products at one point, then you always buy the commercial price, and you'll never have to worry about it again.

Think that our commcercial use prices/license are the same category like  the cornucopia or turobosquid prices/license. Just that we offer choice for private users, which other 3d model shops don't do and probably never will.

The private use prices are actually made available for strict hobby user. If you don't make money from artistic work at all, just do it for leisure, then we agree to give you a huge discount. These are the private use prices. For hobby users, getting a decent library of high quality vegetation can be very costly, so we tried out this "different" approach in pricing. We're offering products under this model now for a couple of months, and so far have had very positive feedback about it.

It's interesting that you all have looked at the private use prices first, and then struggled with making sense of it  for you as professional artists, whereas you should have looked at the commercial use prices as "your" pricing model only.

I hope this is making more sense now. I appreciate your openess on the subject and that you have shared your thoughts with me, although I do not have any vue reputation on this forum.

Best regards,
Frank

Sorry, you still haven't sold the concept to me personally.

I count myself as Semi-Pro, in that I make some money from my work but not enough to make a living from it.
With good quality models available at C3D and other already reputable Companies I would find it difficult to buy from you on these terms!

I'm not trying to piss on your parade, I'm sure you have good products but with that pricing structure I won't be buying.
I typically look for quality and price together, I don't look for the same quality at a different price for a different use, makes no sense to me I'm afraid.

But what will prevent buyers to get the hobbyist price and use the object commercially?

Quote - But what will prevent buyers to get the hobbyist price and use the object commercially?

It's not being prevented, other than it's against the license terms. We are in peace with that risk, though. It started as an experiment, and we figured that people who we know are professional artist, or who we could figure out are professional artists, have all purchased choosing the correct price. And why would anyone professional choose to cheat? There is no reason for it. It's not even tempting, considering the product prices. We know it will happen every now and then regardless, but the benefits of offering a private use pricing too and thus reaching a much broader audience actually outweighs that risk.
As I said, so far it has been successful and has been welcomed as a fair model. Trust is something not very common in business, but we're granting it regardless.

I respect that the "choice" can be irritating at first, especially when you're used to terms such as the ones from C3D, from what I've heard and read.
But aside from the fact that the models that Walli is creating and selling through NWDA are a quality differentiator for us, the "choice" model is another differentiator.
We're not C3D and we're not attempting to beat Turbosquid. We're just a small high quality shop, where you may want to stop by when you're looking for good model packs.

kind regards,
Frank

I don't see this differentation as a problem.

Remember that a professional is interested also on the possibility of documenting the expenses in their tax reports; this means that the 10$ commercial version is deducible while the 4$ hobbiest one not.

Bye!!!

I don't see it a problem for me personally either, since the chance of actually selling any image I ever make is close to zero. But I can see that for others it's a potential problem.

In fact I have another query about these models. They look to be excellent, but since they were made with Xfrog, and being an Xfrog user myself, I wonder about the poly count. My own experience is that Xfrog produces very high poly models, and scattering a lof of them over the landscape could cause a problem. Not for Vue, thanks to ecosystems, or to something like Vray with its proxies, but in other 3D apps. Presumably Walli has access to Xtune, which I don't, but it might be helpful to publish the poly counts on the web site for prospective users.

The grass leaves are fully modelled and only the small flowering parts are made from alpha planes. Texturing of the leaves and the alpha planes is superb work. Because the leaves are fully modelled, it is unlikely that anyone would get those nasty black dots or other artifacts in their renderings. Instead, one should have very high quality renders, time after time, under a wide variety of conditions. 

It is clear these have been made in Xfrog: flowers, leaves and stems are separate sub-components. For  scene builders in many applications, this  is an advantage as the alpha flower portions and the flower stems could be deleted if the application does not support use of alpha planes.

As you would expect from such high quality models, the poly count is relatively large, although it plainly has been optimized to be as small as possible. Models in Pack Number 3 range from     10.12 MB (99, 862 faces) to .7 (7,500 faces) MB in file size and poly count.  Incidentally, the optimization is accomplished very well - faces and vertices are placed in the best possible places to maintain the curves of the grass leaves and stems, while using the fewest possible polys. All models have triangular poly shapes.

Click on the attached pic to get a closer look at the detail.

As a professional model-builder, I would comment that these models are very high quality for the price - indeed, this is a bargain (nay, a "steal!") for the commercial market, and I hope to see more of such plants. (even, considering the prices are in Euros......)

Interesting, thank you. The poly counts are a little lower than I expected, but still quite high. Still, if you want the best, it'll take some resources. They do indeed sound a real bargain.

Hi,

first of all I would like to comment on Franks approach concerning hobby/commercial use. I thought it is an extremely interesting approach, especially because this way he can offer a very interesting rate.

I understand that this is probably not the best approach for everyone - but the regular approaches are covered by many other platforms.
By the way - on Cornucopia you also can choose between a cheaper node locked license and a more expensive "floating" license. And actually I think this is even more dangerous - if you are in need of an object and then notice that you bought it node locked to another Vue license - but this license is probably installed on an older machine not capable of doing the job - then you are in trouble.

And also keep in mind that Frank just started his service and I am sure that he has open eyes and ears for his (potential) customers.

Another point - thats simply my point of view. As (semi)professional user I always would by the commercial license. Why? Because even if I don´t use the clip file or object in a commercial context, I for sure will take a look at it and learn from it. So at a later point I have increased my knowhow for commercial projects. That saves me money and so I have benefitted from this file/object.
As I said, thats "my approach" to this topic.

And I guess if Frank notices that it doesn´t work, well then there might be the regular prices only - which would make it hard for hobby users to get those files.

I just want to repeat - thats my personal point of view.

best,
Walli
 

Hiyas! :)
hm, I'd consider buying them, as IMHO, you never have enugh good quality content!!
But am kind of tapped out, again...

you always get sales when you are saving up for other stuff, don't you? :p

maintenance plan for 7.5 and saving a lot on v8 when it comes out...check!
Geo-Control 2...check!
Wallet starving and hungry, glaring at you...check!! :p

Just as well I've got a job to do a novel cover, lol!!
may buy them in a few months though, all going well.

Xfrog plants ARE amazing, perfect for "heroic" plants, and then using Vue plants for ecos.

okay, and now about the models and polygon count.
First of all -it´s detailed models, thought that you can use them closeup. So yes, its not lightweight models ;-)
Many applications already are able - or will be in near future - to make use of instancing.
Especially in this case, where the main target group is Terragen, higher poly counts don´t really matter. And of course I always try to find a good balance between best possible details and lowest possible poly count with this level of detail.
Also because there are dozens or even hundreds of lower poly models available, I usually tend to go the high detail route. But if people would like to see some lowpoly stuff also - just raise your voice ;-)

And now about a false legend - Xfrog objects are highpoly objects. Thats simply not true.
You can create lowpoly plants with Xfrog, trees with less then 1000 quads -depending on species even less then 300 quads.
You must know that Greenworks also does custom plants and actually we have created many thousands of lowpoly plants - they are simply not available to the public. And no, you don´t need Xfrog tune to do lowpoly plants.

And now about another legend - highpoly objects slow down rendering. The worst case scenario for most render engines is, if rays have to pass many alpha planes. The less polygons you want to use, the more you have to make use of alpha planes - and this often slows down rendering a lot more, then using many polygons.
So in fact in my visualizations I often add details to plant objects to be able to remove as much alpha as possible.
The only drawback is of course memory. But with 64bit being available for half a decade, its a good idea to make use of this power. Almost all PC´s offer 64 nowadays - people just have to drop their fears about 64bit OS ;-)

So a short summary - low detail objects (in my eyes) are mainly good for realtime nowadays, for the rest I prefer to go with high detail. If you feel different, let companies like Greenworks know this. Tell modellers like forester or me what you need.

best,
Walli

Hi Walli,

Some great points there about Xfrog. Yes, of course you can do low-poly plants with it. I wasn't criticising these for being high-poly, since I had no idea what the counts were, simply that it would be a good idea to include such details when offering the plants for sale. Rightly or wrongly it is one of the things I would take into consideration before purchasing - basically, I'd just like to know what I was getting.

For sure high poly counts don't affect render times much. They do affect viewpoint response during editing though - at least, they do in C4D which notoriously has a slower viewport than other such apps.

All said though, these still look like excellent models :-)

yes, you are right about most apps and viewport performance and I think its indeed a good idea to add the polygon counts to the description!