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

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

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

Ah, I've got it, thank you. So the position of the alpha channel directly relates to the position of the gradient. Ok, now that opens up some new capabilites to me! thank you much, Frank

I want to say "Thank you" to all respondants !!! I know have plenty of stuff to learn and play with, and will hopefully come up with some good images from time to time. cheers, Frank

Well Nahee, one of the good things with fractal generators, as well as with apps like Bryce or Poser and all, is, that you can explore a variety of styles and artwork. So right now I can't tell you what artwork within the fractal art I would like to do. I for sure would exhibit and sell my best fractal art, so it would be important to save a project, in order to go back to it if required. I'm grateful that Sean mentioned it - and I didn't ask, because I thought that both apps provide me with this functionality. "Most used" is not really a criteria, I just picked two that I think can help make (to me) pleasing artwork. I want to start with one or the other. That's my decision so far. It's true that I said I found the both quite popular, but I forgot to say (sorry), that from what I've seen I seem to like the artwork from both the most. I do art with Terragen. You can find it here at renderosity or at my site at http://www.basinski-net.de. But that doesn't matter to the fractal questions - it's not comparable and I do not intend to do something comparable with a fractal generator. Also, I use Photoshop to work and enhance my graphics further. So if you have that many experience with so many apps, I would appreciate if you share with me information, how the two applications I picked vary and maybe complement each other. That would help me a lot!

Thank you Sean, that was a very detailed explanation and exactly the type of answer I was looking for. See, I for sure noticed that XD and UF do different things. Both appeal to me. I was now on a sort of waypoint, to decide which way to go first. I can't do and learn both at the same time, because of time constraints. So now I have more facts do decide upon. thanks again, Frank

Thanks for the reply, and yes, I would also like to hear about other - maybe free - programs, as long as they are capable of doing top class fractal artwork. But I don't want to primarily focus on the money aspect, rather I'd like to find out about what the best application for artwork purposes is. That's my intention. I only mentioned Xenodreams and Ultrafractal for I noticed that they're quite popular. thanks, Frank

@suede Thank you :-) I'll give ImageReady a try and see how it can help. cheers, Frank

Ah, now I get your point. The misunderstanding seems to be, that you thought I would like to animate the scene. But I just wanted a still :-) Frank

many thanks,
Frank

@slynky that was a very good tip, actually. I wonder, why I was even trying to achieve the glow by painting :-) Thank you much Frank

Thanks for the tip with the filter. That's what I was looking for :-) I tried the sparks by hand, but I could still use a hint on how to make them look more realistic. Mine don't glow, they look kinda flat .... cheers, Frank