License Clarification

Started by cyphyr, March 17, 2007, 04:39:12 PM

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cyphyr

I went in at the "Deep with Animation" end which gives me "License for one user and 5 additional render node licenses". Given that I cant (can someone show me how) render scenes (animation or single split frame) accross a network yet dose this mean that I can install TG2 on up to 5 or 6 systems and as long as I am the only one using them then all is ok? I'm confused about the symantics of the phrase and what is ment by a "render node". Given that I dont own 5 systems (2 at the moment) its not too important yet but it will become an issue should this ever become more than a hobby.
Thanks
Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
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Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Will

no I think that it means that aopn final reslease that you can get five more render nodes, say in a renderfarm. though I'm no athourity on the matter.

regards,

Will
The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

Dark Fire

Quote from: cyphyr on March 17, 2007, 04:39:12 PM
Given that I cant (can someone show me how) render scenes (animation or single split frame) accross a network yet...
My software should (hopefully*) help you with that. I'm not sure about what the licence lets you do, but my software lets you run a single copy of Terragen on multiple computers as well as multiple copies of Terragen on multiple computers (i.e. one per computer). The software only lets you render animations so far, but I do plan to add the ability to split single frames.

*= I can't test my own software because I don't have the deep edition of T2TP. I have tested the software as much as I can and the only thing I am still not sure about is whether it launches T2TP with the correct command line structure. (Is it me or has the command line structure documentation been removed from version 1.8.76.0?)

Oshyan

Dark Fire, the commandline documentation was removed from the free version of the Technology Preview because commandline rendering is no longer available. Its inclusion in the original Technology Preview release was actually an oversight, so I'm sorry if it got your hopes up. Hopefully you can understand the potential for abuse given our commercial use limitations and tools like the one you're developing.

- Oshyan

cyphyr

So can I get that bit of clarification, pretty please :)
Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Dark Fire

Quote from: Oshyan on March 19, 2007, 03:58:30 AM
Its inclusion in the original Technology Preview release was actually an oversight, so I'm sorry if it got your hopes up. Hopefully you can understand the potential for abuse given our commercial use limitations and tools like the one you're developing.
Well, it's inclusion has certainly inspired me - T2TP is a lot easier to make programs for than TG 0.9 (which had far too many files that needed to be kept track of). I can understand the potential for abuse (anyone who has enough hardware to make decent animations with T2TP must be doing so for commercial purposes), but the free version of T2TP is much more of a demo now (rather than a cut-down version) than any free version of Terragen has been, which is very disappointing :'(. I expect to be able to continue developing my software anyway, because I only require confirmation that my software is launching T2TP correctly once, so that I know I have structured the command line correctly - I don't actually need to be able to launch T2TP from the command line to develop or test the software, since it is so independent. I would have liked to use the feedback from tgdcli.exe too, but unfortunately that would require a copy with a working command line (because the feedback is a new feature that simply didn't exist in TG 0.9 - I don't even know what the 'feedback' consists of). Another feature from T2TP that will be difficult to exploit using the free version is the cropping, which should enable frames to be divided into small parts, thus making my software not only useful for managing animation renders but useful for managing the render of a single image.

To be honest, the exclusion of any command-line functionality from the free version is probably good for me - I won't be able to melt any other computers by rendering ridiculously long animations...

Quote from: cyphyr on March 19, 2007, 05:18:13 AM
So can I get that bit of clarification, pretty please :)
Richard
I am particularly concerned about the fact that Oshyan missed the whole point of this topic, although I am glad (and unhappy) that my concerns have been confirmed.

Oshyan

Quote from: Dark Fire on March 19, 2007, 03:56:09 PM
Quote from: cyphyr on March 19, 2007, 05:18:13 AM
So can I get that bit of clarification, pretty please :)
Richard
I am particularly concerned about the fact that Oshyan missed the whole point of this topic, although I am glad (and unhappy) that my concerns have been confirmed.

I didn't miss the original point but I'm afraid I don't have the full information needed to answer the original question just yet. I expected to have this information shortly after I posted my original reply and so I didn't mention it, but now that it has been a day since then I do apologize for the delay. We will respond with appropriate details on this as soon as possible.

- Oshyan

Dark Fire

Perhaps you could put an explanation of the licence in an FAQ section - I always struggle to translate and understand licences. Also, would it be possible for a 'development' version of T2TP to be created, that has a working command line but has had a few crucial lines of code removed so it doesn't render anything and outputs black images instead? I would like to continue developing software for the Terragen community and such a version would help me a lot. If not, I will have four options:
1. Set up a donation system on my website, in the hope that I will eventually get enough money to buy T2TP.
2. Attempt to develop my software without T2TP, therefore not taking advantage of the feedback and struggling to implement the division of frames through cropping.
3. Make my software open-source so people with T2TP can worry about features that need T2TP, and I can worry abouot other features.
4. Just give up and make some other software, leaving my software for Terragen 0.9 to die with Terragen 0.9 and never getting my software for T2TP out of beta. This isn't as bad as it seems, as it will unlock me from NSIS, my currently preferred programming language. (I particularly like the look of PureBasic - it seems to produce amazingly small and efficient programs that work on operating systems other than Windows (unlike NSIS)...but it costs money :'().

Matt

Quote from: cyphyr on March 17, 2007, 04:39:12 PM
I went in at the "Deep with Animation" end which gives me "License for one user and 5 additional render node licenses". Given that I cant (can someone show me how) render scenes (animation or single split frame) accross a network yet dose this mean that I can install TG2 on up to 5 or 6 systems and as long as I am the only one using them then all is ok?

Hi Richard,

You can install Terragen 2 on as many computers as you like (licenses are not node-locked), but you are limited to how many computers can be running TG2 at the same time. You may use the graphical user interface on only one computer at a time, and up to a maximum of 5 additional computers can be rendering scenes via the command line or via a network (for example by using a third party networking tool or by manually launching Terragen via the command line on those other machines). For Pre-Purchase licenses without the animation option, replace '5' with '3'.

Current versions do not include any software or hardware mechanism to prevent you from breaching these restrictions, but we plan to include more secure mechanisms in future.

I hope that makes things a little clearer.

Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Dark Fire

That's much clearer to me, and it seems like a pretty reasonable deal - it's not particularly restrictive at all due to the fact that the licences are not 'node-locked'. Maybe I could build some node-limiting security features (with respect to the number of licences held by the user) into my software for the fun of it...

cyphyr

Hi Matt

Thanks for the clarification. Seems fine to me, I can only sit in front of one computer at a time ;)

Will there be some tutorials about network rendering or command line rendering soon or is this not relevant yet since its still in development?

Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Oshyan

In general the network rendering is pretty much "do it yourself" at this point (time for a little "home improvement", eh? har har! ;D). The commandline is documented in commandline.txt in the /docs folder in the TG2 Tech Preview install directory. When we are able to implement more robust distributed rendering tools they will of course be documented.

- Oshyan

Dark Fire

Quote from: Oshyan on March 21, 2007, 11:00:16 PM
In general the network rendering is pretty much "do it yourself" at this point.
It's the "do it yourself" attitude that made me write my own software for network rendering, but the TG2 built-in distributed rendering tools will almost certainly be amazing compared to my software. Perhaps you could look at my software for ideas for the sort of statistics and data people want - if you are going to make my software obselete I'd like to be able think that its spirit will live on in TG2...

Oshyan

Well, we're firm believers in not duplicating effort or spreading ourselves too thin. We do want to facilitate network rendering and license management as much as needed, but at the same time tools like yours, Condor, Dr. Queue and others already do these jobs pretty well and many are free. So we'll be looking at those available tools and how we can work with them efficiently to determine in part how we handle our own systems.

We want to provide a complete solution where possible and sensible, but at the same time those who will be doing such distributed rendering are likely to already have the knowledge to use a 3rd party system which may also be more versatile anyway. So a balance of sensible feature development within TG2 will have to be struck.

- Oshyan

Dark Fire

Quote from: Oshyan on March 22, 2007, 04:44:26 PM
...but at the same time those who will be doing such distributed rendering are likely to already have the knowledge to use a 3rd party system which may also be more versatile anyway. So a balance of sensible feature development within TG2 will have to be struck.
A very good point. My software is not so doomed after all. I keep on forgetting that it is only Microsoft that crushes other products...