Lumion Pro now US$3,900... Bait and Switch, anyone?
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bait and switch
"a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one"
-Merriam-Webster dictionaryThe original Lumion back in Nov 2010 was 750€. Then, "Lumion Ultimate" appeared in June 2011, going for 1,500€.
The price of Lumion Pro was announced today: 3,000€. At today's rate, that's US$3,900.
Even though "Ultimate" users were promised to always have everything, they're also eliminating "Ultimate" from the product line, leaving only "Lumion" and "Lumion Pro", so when Version 3.0 comes later this year, current Ultimate users will have to make a choice.
How did they come with such a price? Oh, they followed a very scientific method... They carefully crafted a poll with lots of different options and run it through a huge sample of... 11 beta testers. Of them, only 7 (63%) voted for the option. The other options are written in a suspiciously confusing way.
BTW, Lumion is actually a specialized version of Quest3D, which goes for 10,000 €, so the sky is the limit for pricing future Lumion top versions.
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Yeah, once again with the bullshit! As a Lumion 2 Ultimate license holder, I'm extremely annoyed by this second round of price hikes after being promised certain things as an Ultimate user.
I think as the technology improves in realtime, the prices should come down and the free market should keep the gauging to a minimum. Not triple in price in less than two years!!! Lumion is now ridiculously overpriced, especially when it is nothing but an "extension" based animation program, which needs separate software to model. Even Autodesk doesn't pull these kind of bait and switch tactics as the Lumion team. If I didn't have so much invested in it, I would be inclined to drop it on principle alone. -
Competition. What this needs is competition.
Unfortunately, Twinmotion 2, "the render killer" was killed by Lumion's early low price. You can even see the tumbleweeds in Twinmotion's forum.
Today Lumion is more expensive than Twinmotion 2, and thanks to all the early support gained through the initial low price, Lumion has been developed a lot more. Now I understand the Lumion team were actually practicing dumping, a dishonest pricing policy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_%28pricing_policy%29 -
Is the Crytek Cryengine 3 still available? Similar effects?
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Yes, and some friends use it, but only for hobby projects, since it can not be used for commercial stuff.
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Firstly for the general hobbyist this does not make sense as it is a very expensive toy, but for a small business this is a reasonably priced tool and the advantage to the frequent upgrade costs is it's completely tax deductible.
"Software with a useful life of less than a year--and given the rapid change in technology, this could apply to a lot of programs--can be deducted as a business expense in the year you buy it"
From tax code, or another option is section 179 where you can write off all hardware and software purchased in the one year, use it or lose it.
However this is the US, not sure of your tax system Miguel.
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Miguel,
I completely understand your unhappiness (to put it mildly) at the way Lumion product pricing. It looks to me to be extremely poor company policy.
@solo said:
Firstly for the general hobbyist this does not make sense as it is a very expensive toy, but for a small business this is a reasonably priced tool and the advantage to the frequent upgrade costs is it's completely tax deductible.
"Software with a useful life of less than a year--and given the rapid change in technology, this could apply to a lot of programs--can be deducted as a business expense in the year you buy it"
From tax code, or another option is section 179 where you can write off all hardware and software purchased in the one year, use it or lose it.
However this is the US, not sure of your tax system Miguel.
Pete, I think you are missing the point. We all know about tax deductible costs. I think the point being made Miguel is that the product has been leveraged in price far beyond 'normal' upgrade prices. I know of not other CAD product that has taken price jumps like this.
I never tried Lumion. As far as I concerned any reasonably sized company that has launched a 3D app in recent years that doesn't cater for the Mac community over time is not interested in true product development only a 'cash kill'.
I think anyone that wants to get into this kind of tech should give REALI3D http://www.realis3d.com/ an try. Its in Beta and caters for both Win and Mac users. I have also been advised that the pricing will be reasonable AND remain reasonable. They are looking at long term development
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Reasonable upgrade costs are acceptable, but false advertising is not. It's been a lot of carrot dangle marketing and it's frustrating. When you buy a software based on logical deductions via statements and promises, and those are flip flopped and your investment is devalued, then one has a right to complain. (These guys are worse than Mitt Romney!) After all, you buy that right with your purchase. Lumion became Lumion Basic, now Lumion Ulimate has also become Lumion Basic (mid relased from 2.1 to 2.2) and Lumion Pro will next become Lumion Basic and Lumion Enterprise will be released. After all it's Act3D and it is the same marketing pattern they used for Quest 3D. http://quest3d.com/forum/index.php?topic=54036.0
Definition of Ultimate - (adjective) - "representing a limit beyond which further progress, as in investigation or analysis, is impossible" - "last; furthest or farthest; ending a process or series" - "highest; not subsidiary" (noun) - "the final point; final result" - "the best, greatest, or most extreme of its kind." (Even the name was false advertising)
They have a right to do as they wish with their software and people can take it or leave it, I suppose. Bottom line is this, just know when you purchase Lumion, you are not purchasing future development of the program, however you are purchasing the development done previously and all future development (evolution), besides bug fixes and cosmetics, will come with a hefty price tag. As long as that is the understanding going in, then I am okay with it. I just don't want to be misled. (And also people have a right to be warned and informed)
The coming years will see a huge advancement in realtime raytracing and as that happens the cubemap cartoons will have to evolve or die. One day we will be looking back and laughing at the psuedo realtime graphics of today.
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The funny of the thing is that Prog (Lumion) has an interface very efficient but very simple & "toy's aspect"
So people who put the price will be some pertubated! -
My thoughts about Lumion is that it has superb quality for water. One of the best I've seen. But that is a heritage from Quest3d.
They also have great looking animated trees which they bought from Speedtree (= expensive).
But apart from that its really not that special.
For one thing it doesn't have color bleeding (and won't get it in the future either according to a direct answer to my question)
I think the output to realtime walk through is a joke.The specs are so high only a few clients will be able to use it and since you'll need to install Lumion free you also need to educate a client how to navigate. Not the best solution. -
I purchase Lumion license rather early. The very day I got my dongle by FedEx, they announced a changed license check policy and the new surprise price. This doubled the initial purchasing price for me if I wanted full functionality. I returned the dongle and got repaid. I was not ready to go down this foreseeable slippery slope. I don't regret it.
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http://lumionautics.com/interview-with-ferry-marcellis/
@unknownuser said:
With Quest3D our development process is easy & fast… so there is a lot that can be done.
On the short term, our goals are to incorporate features you might find in other application you use daily too… Like the creation of normal maps using Crazybump or nD02, or video editing using Premiere and After Effects.
In the midterm we want to focus on what we do best and that is super quick end results. It is super important to us that our clients get their job done as quickly as possible and with high quality. This will allow them to do more work in less time or add more value to their own clients by providing much more revisions for example.
In the long run, maybe we might try to give modeling a shot.
It will continue like that I guess, but if it can replace Premiere and After Effects from my workflow. IThat's going to be interesting to me.
And it would be quite useful, if SketchUp or Lumion can do this:
http://youtu.be/Qhfl7dLs2fU
IMO it is positive for workflow in SketchUp, when one don' have to use rendering software for most task any more
I'm thinking about if the same thing going to happened with Trimble SketchUp. What people want to say
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