Hello,

The price of a product is always difficult to define. VWD needed me 2 years of work, without counting the 30 years of work in the domain of numerical simulations.

I created a Physical protection based on the hard disk, but this method of protection has a bad reputation, however it is the only one which protects correctly the creator. The reason of this is that the programmers who activated this kind of protection refused to give a new key to buyers when they had problems. These programmers don't understand it is not important to lost one key. Many persons told me they will refuse to buy the program if it uses this protection method. I decided to remove all protection in VWD but now, we can find it on many download sites and in torrent files.

Perhaps, the price of VWD is too high and I would accept to reduce it. This is the goal of this thread. For me, the ability of the program to make relive many old clothes and hair, makes its price not so high.

I wanted to send a new version at Renderosity but why work so much to see this version on download sites the next week. It is the reason why there is no updates for the program. However I continue to work on it and to add new functionnalities. Here is the problem of digital creation. I make all this work to create a program useful for the users, but I am not millionaire and I need some money to live. Why work on a project that don't income anything. The piracy kills the creation.

First al all, I want to thank all the buyers of VWD. To them and to those who would like to buy VWD, do you think the price of VWD is too high?

In all case, this will not modify the fact that VWD will not be protected.

VWD, I consider your pricing for this program a bit on the cheap side, compared to what it delivers. EVERY serious Daz user NEEDS to have this in their arsenal; to see hair or clothes reacting unnaturally breaks the immersion in a piece of art. You become focused on that wrong detail rather than the beauty of what's being presented. It makes Daz Studio pieces feel so much more professional and authentic. What's the point of having advanced, realistic figures like Genesis 3 if their hair defies gravity and their clothes don't fit their body accurately?

And then there's brand new life into ancient products. I have an immense category of V4 items that I can re-use again. :)

The program isn't perfect; or maybe it isn't in the wrong hands. One mistake feels like you have to close VWD and go through the entire process again, while remembering where you went wrong last time.

However, I love VWD immensely and I don't want to see its creator cheated out of money that he deserves. You've brought a unique, indispensable program to use Daz Studio users (I know that Poser already has the cloth room), so thank you and I don't feel VWD is too expensive!

Hello

To add about what Ashfire said:

• about the price: it is the right balance between the price and what people can do with it (also what is their goal) . VWD is not so high for me because I know what I can do with it and nothing is impossible : imagination is the only limit! I could have paid more now :-). VWD is more quick, easy, robust, complete than any other solution I ever tested and I think I tested some : clothe room, optitex in DS4, wrinkle , Marvelous Designer for simulating existing objects (I don't talk about modeling), ....

The main trouble may be is that dynamic simulation is not a one click solution and people prefer to have conforming clothes. It has been a long discussion since the clothe room appeared in Poser. Another point: I was surprised that some people who are interested don't see the differences between VWD and other solutions. For example the most important feature for me : the possibility to drag vertices. Even if you made videos!

Perhaps a more basic VWD version with fewer parameters and less expensive could be a solution. Basic scenario could be adressed without making people afraid. This version could be accompanied with small tutorials (not only video) adressing the basic cases: a basic simu, converting a clothe made for one character to another, chains, curtains,... If people become more confident they could upgrade to a more complex one and have access to the full parameters. Don't know if it possible : no parameters at all ! only selecting the vertices (collision, fixed,...) and then simu and drag of vertices to adjust ! The manual would be short :-) !

• About protection: if I must choose between protection and no evolution of the tool because you can no more invest in VWD, My choice is simple: Protection!!

English is not my first langage so not sure to be clear. But pleeeeeeeaaase: WE NEED VWD (AND THE BRIDGES TOO!!!) .

VWD was a major step for me to make better pictures.

I did not find the pricing to be unreasonable. Your product is amazing and most important to me as an animator who has chosen to work in Daz Studio. If you choose protection, I pray that you will continue to upgrade it and allow those who have purchased it to have the upgrades for free. Regarding the piracy, they will always try to crack it no matter how good your protection is. But understand that those who are getting it for free on those sites would not have paid for it anyway. There are more honest people who see the value of your product and prefer to pay then there are dishonest ones.

I have to agree your price is in line with similar programs. Maybe do a little paid advertising.

@3DFineries : I accept to make paid advertising but I didn't know that this solution existed. Could you tell me how I have to do.

@VWD: I really wish that Poser or Daz would pay you some kind of royalty or maybe a large one-time fee so that VWD could be integrated into those software programs. Piracy will always exist and yes, protection is no guarantee that someone will not find a crack anyway to bypass it. Then the protection only makes the true customers of the product frustrated.

In terms of a more basic version of VWD, it is too bad you cannot have a basic version of VWD that emulates the Poser Cloth Room more closely for its user interface so that it can be swapped into Poser (get rid of Cloth Room... it is so ancient and should've been updated a long time ago). This way existing Poser users do not have a big learning curve, the interface would look and behave very close or identical to the old Cloth Room. Then maybe Smith-Micro can pay to get the new VWD-Cloth Room upgraded every 2 years with features that are passed down from the standalone VWD product... migrate the features bit by bit, add more functions to the ClothRoom interface... etc.

I consider the price of the current version to very good value, as is.

I would buy a version 2, protected or not. However I do have reservations about purchasing from sources that don't have strong reputations (i.e. it has been many years since I have purchased directly from another developer or low reputation market site).

I would not buy it if it contained 3rd party advertising, even if it were free.

Disclaimer, I may be have a bias in that I am more a amateur coder than an amateur 3D artist.

You should use the principle of Price Discrimination. Things are at different prices depending on how much money people are willing to spend. This is what Daz does. Everything is priced very high, but there are lots of sales. If you have money but not enough time, you buy things at full price. If you have no money but lots of time, you can spend time to wait for a sale and get things cheap. I often end up buying things I don't need because the sales are so good that I'll buy things I don't need.

One problem with VWD is that I assume that Daz Studio users make up a large percentage of your market, but the Daz version of VWD is complicated to install and expensive. You have to buy two things, and the Daz plugin is never on sale. You can read on the Daz forums: every time someone talks about VWD, many people can't figure out how to buy it. People think it's for Poser only. Daz users are amateurs and need things to be simpler and cheaper for them.

You also don't do enough marketing. Daz users have already forgotten about VWD. You need to release a new version with new features, make some announcements to make people excited, so that they talk about it again. You should give free copies to artists who make Poser/Daz clothing and get them to use it in their products. You should see if artists can include VWD presets with their clothing (you would need to change your Daz plugin to support some sort of presets though).

Hello, thank you for all these messages.

Currently, I create a new version with many new functionnalities. I want to send it to Renderosity in two or three weeks. WimVDB is writing a new documentation, I thank him very, very, very much. I know I have to simplify VWD. Even if I think all the functions are useful, I have to create presets to make the cloth or the hair creation easier to do.

@my2iu : thank you for all these advices. You are right, I don't do enough marketting.

I think it's tremendous value for money. ... Simplifying VWD? I don't think it needs it. It does lots of complex things, although if there was a default scene, using items that Daz includes by default, as well as what Poser includes, might be helpful, then it shows what can be done.

By the way, has there been an update to VWD? I have version 1.0.408.2976.

VWD, Any pricing you give your product would be easily justified for such a revolutionary piece of software. I know I am always anticipating updates and functionalities, so please do not get discouraged. Your community is behind you whichever direction you decide to take the product. Thank you so much for creating it!

Kwan

Hi VWD.

I think making your software available without protection is an honorable choice. It reminds of the old Bethesda Softwork policy: "we don't need protection because we are confident our products will be hugely successful and most people will buy because they perceive value". The real problem is convincing people that there is value.

Your product already works very well, but there are some quirks and limitations that limit perceived value. Crashes are not bad per se, but VWD should offer an option to save the current scene at launch (and maybe a "always save" checkbox). Working on more than one clothing item at once should be possible. If that's not possible, you should be able to convert the current cloth to a collision, and load a new cloth without leaving VWD. A pane where only the imported collision and cloth/hair are listed would be handy. A "Refresh Host List" and a "Clear Scene" button should also be provided. Instead of throwing an error when you open the Vertices Tools/Groups with nothing selected, VWD should offer a "pick an object from this list" dialog. These are small changes, but would raise perceived quality substantially.

Frequent updates are not a priority, unless they address very popular demands or widespread bugs.

The included documentation is quite detailed already, but I suspect a lot of people would prefer watching videos. Instruction videos would also easily become fast-to-share marketing material. I know making good instructional videos is quite hard and time consuming.

Your presence on the official Daz forum would serve as a reminder that VWD exists and is valuable.

Another measure would be active action against piracy. While you won't be able to get rid of it entirely, you can usually report copyright infringements and make the pirated version more difficult to find. Alternatively you could enter the pirate forums and try to persuade people that your software is worth the money.

50 seems an adequate price, it's not cheap, but it's good value for what it does. IIRC Octane started at 100 and went up as it gained popularity. Both Garibaldi and LAMH, which are more comparable to VWD in their structure, are sold for 50.

Hope you'll find this useful. I'm really looking forward to the next version.

VWD, I love your product and use it all the time with the DAZ Studio Bridge. I understand your frustration that your work is being pirated and I can understand your idea that updates are not worth your time because of that. But as a purchaser I would hate to think that I and others cannot count on the product being supported and improved. I'd gladly put out an upgrade purchase for major new capability if it became available. For me, your product is tremendous value and was worth every penny.

I've seen other vendors in the DAZ/Poser markets say that the vast majority of their sales happen early on. I don't think that's necessarily just because of piracy, It seems to be a characteristic of this particular market. I hope you continue to work in this area, I will remain a supporter with my dollars if you do.

Hello,

My pleasure is to improve VWD. A new version is in progress. This version will add many functions and will correct many bugs. It will be for update in some weeks.

This version will have a new documentation. This new documentation is written by WimVDB. I thank him very, very, very much. I will wait that this documentation is full terminated to send the update to Renderosity.

I thank you for all your messages, They help me to continue in the same way as before, ie to make a product that will allow to do more realistic renders.

 Gérald