Indigo Going Commercial
-
i made a statement some time ago on the indigo web site suggesting it would go commercial, and i was cut to shreds!
Cmon' it only made sense to me then and still makes sense to me now. its a great renderer, perhaps better than some of the expensive ones. in my mind there was never a doubt, and why not, it takes a lot of work and we're (users) not charity cases. -
I would like to hear from Whaat on this. what's your take on this; did you know it was coming; have they contacted you on your exporter; if not would you have wasted so much time and effort if you'd have known it was going commercial?
-
I cant imagine they havent got the exporter developers involved, as without them indigo is pretty useless.
-
oh nice.. just in time for the OS X release..
-
I missed where it said going commercial meant there would no longer be a no-cost version. Why couldn't there be a commercial and a free version? (like SketchUp)
That looks to be the plan: http://www.indigorenderer.com/node/580
-
@xrok1 said:
I would like to hear from Whaat on this. what's your take on this; did you know it was coming; have they contacted you on your exporter; if not would you have wasted so much time and effort if you'd have known it was going commercial?
In all honesty, I did not know that Indigo would go commercial. As for me, I'm still on the team and I hope to stay on the team. Things are quite chaotic right now but I am sure that in time, things will get sorted out and the users will be getting a higher quality product with much better documentation and customer support.
Cheers,
Whaat -
Heres a little extract form their forum about the free version:
@unknownuser said:
There will always be a free version of Indigo - it's going have a maximum resolution of about 0.7 megapixel, and a watermark in the bottom right saying that it's rendered with indigo and for non-commercial purposes (in little writing).
-
I'm dying to see a feature list. What'll be their unique selling proposition? As Tomasz pointed out, going up against Fry and Maxwell won't be easy.
If it were me, I'd concentrate on workflow and support. As far as the workflow part is concerned, I hope Whaat fully realises precisely how important his plugin is. (And I'm guessing he does.)
-
If it was me i'd certainly be pushing in the workflow direction. From my very limited experience of the max and fry plugins they both shadow in comparison to whaats masterpiece, but then max and fry both have standalone studio applications, so i suppose it is less important.
another extract from benns post on the subject:
@unknownuser said:
- Better installers
- Better plugins
- Better documentation
- More feaures
- Faster Indigo - we have some cool tricks up our sleeves
I'm intrigued to know what 'more features' will be.
-
Fry doesn't have a standalone app, as far as I know. MW does have one, of course, but it does very little for workflow. Quite the contrary: it's the buggiest, clunkiest app I've ever used. Junk.
I've been considering dumping MW in favor of Fry, as I've grown severely dissatisfied with NL's approach to a number of things. ("A bug, you say? We'll fix it ... manana." Them NL boys should be very happy I don't live in Madrid.) If the commercial version of Indigo is any good - and I like what I read in Benn's post - I may consider getting that one instead.
Hmm, all sorts of interesting possibilities here! Make basic model in SU, export to modo for refinement and texturing, export again to Blender for camera setup etc, load mats made with SkIndigo ...
Might be cool.
-
I'm wondering if Lux will rise to the challenge and fill the void that indigo will leave... I've used it a tiny bit with blender and was extremely impressed. Not only the program was great (even had inbuilt noise removal controls), but the plugin for blender is amazingly well integrated. If they could do that for SU, and yes plans have been made to do this I think, then that would be very interesting indeed!
-
Lux Render sure looks like a valid alternative to the free Indigo.
It will take a while though to make a SU plugin that is par to the quality of Skindigo......but yeah, bring it on! -
I use Kerkythea but I am waiting for a Luxrenderer plugin. I prefer to use opensource tools. If I can't, I use free alternatives. And I believe that there are at this momment a lot of renderers, so I can choose.
(Anyway I use the free version of sketchup and I am trying to export the .skp to blender. It's complex and it's being under discussion in another thread. My models are very heavy).
-
A quote from Benn regarding pricing: "We will run an introductory price of 295€ for a lifetime licence to Indigo (free upgrades for life) for some months, then full price will be 595€."
Not bad at all, but considering times are tough, I'll have to choose between getting the new Indigo and the new Modo. Choices, choices.
-
@unknownuser said:
I'll have to choose between getting the new Indigo and the new Modo. Choices, choices.
Considering what I've seen so far with Modo 401 and all it's features...it's a no brainer.
-
Dunno, Pete. While Modo certainly is a good modeling app, currently I am not that hot about the quality of the renders it produces. Sure, it's just the ticket for product shots, but arch viz? That's where it falls short, for the time being.
Oh well, I'll likely go with Modo anyway, and make do.
I am curious to see where Indigo heads, though.
-
i don't see how you could see a problem with Modo's rendering? it looks world class to me, even better than indigo, just has a very steep learning curve IMO. take a look at modo's gallery compared to indigo's. besides if the makers of indigo think i'll pay for their renderer then use someone elses exporter, their crazy! i would advise Whaat and the rest of the exporter developers to seise and desist development imediatly, then we'd see how fast indigo gets flushed down the toilet. i don't think its a bad idea for indigo to go commercial, i do however think it shows weasel shit practices that they think they can sell us a product based on the strengths of people who developed the framework of that program for free, and whom have not been involved OR informed (according to Whaat) of such commercial plans.
that's not a company that i want to be involved with, who knows whats next? maybe you buy indigo then Whaat decides not to continue with skindigo, you just payed for a brick. Or maybe you pay $500 for indigo and the writter of the exporter you use decides hey, if indigo's worth $500, then my exporter should be worth $500, what do you do then?
Way too unpredictable to me.
-
@xrok1 said:
i don't see how you could see a problem with Modo's rendering?
By looking carefully.
@xrok1 said:
even better than indigo
Look closer.
@xrok1 said:
maybe you buy indigo then Whaat decides not to continue with skindigo, you just payed for a brick. Or maybe you pay $500 for indigo and the writter of the exporter you use decides hey, if indigo's worth $500, then my exporter should be worth $500, what do you do then?
Way too unpredictable to me.
This most certainly is a good point.
-
If Indigo goes commercial it is logical that the plugins would go commercial as well.
How can you expect Whaat doing it for free when he knows he's making someone else richer but not earning anything himself?Off course I would have preferred Indigo and the plugins to remain free ....simply because getting things for free is fun
-
lol. True. I must admit I too liked Indigo's being free. Nonetheless, their move is an interesting one, as it means they got to have something they haven't shown us yet. Or at least I hope so, for their sake.
Advertisement