I was wondering if you think they will have a special price to upgrade to Vue 10 since Vue 11 is coming out in the near future?  I am a Vue 8 Complete user, but can't afford the $300 upgrade price to Vue 10 and was hoping for an end of life discount so I don't loose my upgrade path when Vue 11 Complete comes out. 

It's very sad that Vue pricing has gone through the roof since Hollywood discovered it.  I guess I can use Vue 8 Complete until it will no longer work with my future version of Windows and then go back to Espirit if I have to.  I was an original Vue Infinity user untill that shot out of range for my wallet.

Yeah, I stopped upgrading my Vu8I due to the costs as well. I honestly never get the chance to really spend a ton of time on it, and the cost exceeds the amount of real world use I'll get out of it.

 

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

I must confess that I haven't used it as much as I had at one time either or I thought I would.   There have been more natural landscapes created for Poser and Daz Studio as of late too, so it's easier for me to do all my scene in just one program.  Carrara has really come around as far as being able to create more natural looking landscapes as well.

I probably should have signed up for the subscription--which would have been the most cost effective, but it's too late now.  I suppose I am most upset with the loss of money as I'v probably spent more money on this software than I have on any other program I've ever bought and it's only been over the past year that I've had a computer with enough RAM and resources to run it without crashes.  For a while I couldn't do anything with it on my 32 bit system without  the thing running out of memory and dieing on me. 

It would be nice if Eon would give price breaks on older versions. Surely they have Vue 10 DVDs left that they had rather sale that throw away.  Same way with modules. Why is a EcoPaint module for Vue 9 not cheaper than one for Vue 11?  You are forced to buy the new version each year before they charge so much for upgrades from older editions.

Yeah, eon pricing went berserk when they went hollywood.  I think that was around version 6.  The maintenance scam shortly came out adding insult to injury.  Most of the programs I have allow upgrade prices regardless of the version owned NOT eon.  Software companies also have discounts, sales, & special NOT eon.  It is/was a great program but the price sudden price hike, it is ruined.

I had a chance to make a 6 sec animation the other day & it took 50hrs to render with shadow anomalies & flickers.  Each png had to be fixed in photoshop before the animation went out the door, so eon has really lost me as a customer unless they change their greedy ways.

Greed seems the order of the day, it seems like Adobe is also going to a similar plan where you will only be able to get an upgrade price if you upgrade from the version preceding the newest version.  They also are trying to sell people helfy  month subscription fees where you don't actually own the programs but will pay a rental fee each month to use them.  I've not found that every version of Photoshop worth upgrading, but now I'll have to do every upgrade because I can't afford to pay for the program without an upgrade and I think the rental fee absurd.  I wish that Photoshop Elements had everything I needed in it, then I could afford to let Photoshop go and just use that--but it doesn't so I'll just keep paying.

I do find $600 for Vue Complete without an upgrade absurd for a hobbiest.  I agree also that htey have one of the slowest render engines on earth.  Well at one time there were lighting effects that I could only accompllish in Vue, but that's no longer the case,  I think it's funny that it took them this many version to finally include particles--you'd have thought that that would have been one of their earliest innovations.

Being unable to upgrade from older previouos versions is one BIG reason I stopped buying Vue. I love the program and the capabilities, but the sheer greed of requiring you to buy a full package after skipping a couple of upgrades is ludicrous. This is one of the things that I absolutely LOVE about Newtek and Luxology - both companies allow you to upgrade from ANY previous version at the same upgrade cost! Incredible!

 

Until they change their ways, I'll not be a customer - they don't DESERVE my loyalty and patronage since they cannot respect my previous purchases from them. Too bad.

Sony has also had a very liberal policy for upgrading their video editing software.  I purchased Sony Vegas Pro and skipped several versions but I still have the option of getting the new version at the upgrade price.  If an upgrade only comes out once every few years (like Poser) it's not so bad, but when a company upgrades it's software every year it becomes costly and difficult to keep up.  I have found that I've just learned or gotten a 3rd party book about the newest version when they release the next version. 

Its not even yearly they have a .5 release, and egg you onto a maint plan to obtain that.

 

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

I jumped on the Maintenance right up front and get the latest Infinite always for one payment a year. Way easier and in the end, way cheaper. Works out about $20 bucks a month to have all the features. One lunch with my wife costs $30.

I use it a lot though and the I need some of the features in Infinite.

This is very powerful software folks and is actually cheap in comparison to other software in this category. The price is not out of line.

Most don't need or use the extra stuff in the Pro versions, so providing cheaper alternatives seems like a good thing to me also.

Bryce is free. Daz Studio is free and is quickly looking better than Poser Pro and free also. That's a great alternative. In the right hands Bryce put's out some nice stuff and Daz Studio stands in for Poser and will export to Bryce.

I loathe Bryce, actually some of the recent landscapes I've seen done in Carrara look better to my eye than Bryce. Bryce has a certain look, I can usually tell right away if something was created in Bryce.  I downloaded it and haven't installed it.  I've not found Bryce to be very intuitive and have always had probelms with it myriad windows and settings.  I should learn to use Carrara, I own the Pro version, but I've not had time.  No offense to Bryce fans, but I think that the interface is outdated and it really needs a complete rewrite to bring it into the 21rst Century.

I wish I could join the maintanance thing, but I missed the boat on that one.  It's my own fault.  AS I said before I will probably just keep using Vue 8 Complete for the time being and if it turns out I am using it a lot I might have to go with a cheaper alternative--but Espirit doesn't have ecosystems and I find the cost of add on modules to be prohibitive.  I wish I had $300 lying around to upgrade to 10 before it's too late, but that ain't gonna happen right now.  I've been a Vue user since version 4, I just feel that they should offer something to people like me who have already shelled out a bundle of cash so that it is affordable to upgrade when we're ready.  I wanted to sell my copy of Vue Infitinite, but I found out that it would have killed all my subsequent Vue versions licenses--my intention was to sell that software with some educational videos I'd bought to raise the money for an upgrade to 10 but found ouit that was impossible with the way they do things.

I don't believe in giving E-on money on a routine basis for software that is more and more buggy, with fewer and fewer new features.  Besides, most features that E-on bolts on now are toy features, not something pros would use.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

I do think that the particles that Vue will now have is a significant new feature that they should have had years ago--but I supposed that there are other ways to achieve the same effect in post production.  I agree about the bugs, I don't think they ever have worked out all the bugs in any version and their ads have claimed to be able to handle big scenes with lower resources but that has never been true.  If one doesn't have a computer running a 64 bit OS ans a ton of ram one can't get anything done in Vue.

Quote - I do think that the particles that Vue will now have is a significant new feature that they should have had years ago.

People got what they wished for, a new particles feauture that looks like it's from years ago.  And so then what?  Hope E-on updates it to be useful enough by Vue 15, while they add other gimmicks?  Vue is built on a house of cards.  But for a cheap subscription fee, you get some new cheap features thrown in.

E-on just needs a Quality Control department.  Because the programmers won't fix any bugs they find on their own until a subscribed customer does a ticket report on that same bug.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

I think they have too many different versions and probably should just have an "artists" version and a "pro" version.  When they offered me a side-grade from Infinite to Complete, I thought I was getting just a slightly different version than the one I was using.  It was upsetting to me that they actually had removed features and went back to the old interface.  The more I think about the the more annoyed I am--an upgrade shouldn't be a downgrade or at least it should be a lateral move, this really felt like a punishment.

Some programs out there are just one program.  Customers download the thing to try out.  Just a few features are activated.  Then they decide what features they want to use and then buy the proper activation code to enable those buttons or whatever.  The GUI is the same no matter what is activated.  TurboCAD is one example.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG