Where can I find the new plants?

Started by AndyWelder, April 02, 2009, 03:05:55 AM

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Zylot


Astrian

#91
also when i get a little time I will put together a pack of Hq plants that I have made from scratch I will include the xfrog files for proof
since you are a little short on plants at the moment ;) sorry I cant give you any onyxtree plants as the license does not allow it which is the only drawback of the software :-\

rcallicotte

xFrog deserves what they get - ZERO of my dollars.

I hope all is well with you, lightning and that your talents are better served outside of the guise of others' mislabeled intentions.

Greenworks can have the business business.  They aren't getting mine. 

This kinda thing is the reason I hate bigger businesses.  Good riddens, Greenworks.

So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Oshyan

Guys, let's please keep it civil. There's no need to "hate" Xfrog, and they're certainly not a big business. What they're offering is not of interest to you, that's fine, but there's no denying it's a good deal, and there will be people who can afford it and will really enjoy the flexibility the bundle offers.

Like you I hope that Xfrog has enough interest in the hobbyist market to make more affordable, a la carte options available, but it's unreasonable to be mad at a company if they don't offer their product at a price you can afford. If a company charges too much, they go out of business, so they lose a lot bigger than you do. If the market bears what they're charging, then they've got a good business model, and they should realistically think carefully about additions or modifications to it.

The reality is is they're making a great product, which is clear from everyone's interest here, and considering that interest I think they could do well with individual plant sales if they price it right. But we all have to keep in mind that for a business it's not as easy as just deciding one day to offer their products at a steep discount. If you sell a version of product at 1/5th the price of a similar existing product, you need to either have reasonable expectation that it won't cut into your existing sales, or have reasonable expectation of getting 5 times the sales volume, neither of which is usually a safe assumption. Per unit pricing and bundle options are a critical concern.

I hope that Xfrog finds a sustainable and successful way to reach a wider audience. I think everyone would benefit.

As for "Astrian/Lightning", there's no doubt that use of other people's copyrighted material is not right, even if it's just a portion of it. The law is less clear on "fair use" in cases of heavy modification, but it gets very tricky with software because the arguments about what constitutes "significant" modification can be complex and uncertain. It's never a good idea to do what he did, and he's acknowledged that which is good. If he can once again offer resources to the community with complete legality, I applaud and encourage that. But while Xfrog may not have worked out a deal with him and that may frustrate some of you, remember that Xfrog had every right to do what they did and they could have gone further but didn't.

All in all I think we're at a decent place, so let's keep it that way. We'll all keep hoping for and encouraging individuals and companies to offer good hobbyist-level products and pricing, and I'm sure the market will manifest it sooner than later given the clear demand. In the meantime at Planetside our pricing and product structure makes a clear statement about our support for this market.

- Oshyan

Zylot

Oshyan: I have no problem with Xfrog's deal.  For those with $400 to throw around it's fantastic, and you're right, they don't *have* to pander to us and offer better deals for smaller bundles or what have you...

Yet, I find it funny that they feel the need then to constantly hint at such things, and then announce to us some "Special goings on" obviously hyping us up to what we feel is going to target the community here, and then go completely against what they were saying to us.  Looking at things from this perspective, it's very very disappointing.

neuspadrin

Its nice to see you again lightning. I've been missing nice free high quality models.  Just this time lets keep them legal, that would be very nice.

Onyx tree looks interesting, I'll have to browse around about it.  I see they have student pricing, thats always a plus for me ;)

Oshyan

Zylot, yes you're absolutely right, and I hope they do come through. There is still that possibility you know, even if it's late. ;)

I certainly don't think their hintings are malicious. It has taken a lot of work to get to the point of release both for Planetside and for Xfrog with the bundle. I can't speak for them, but I would think they simply underestimated the time involved to do this, and were expecting to be able to make more progress on other projects, release free plants, etc. in the same time frame. Having seen how these sort of promises go from the back end, it can be very frustrating on the other end of things as well, thinking that you have something "in the bag" and then running up against more problems than you ever thought possible. That is of course why we stopped making release date promises, and that seemed to ultimately work fairly well, hehe.

In any case I agree there could be better communication, clarity, and certainly follow-through. Hopefully that will become so in time.

- Oshyan

latego

Well 400$ is a hit but... with this sum you get 1300 plants, i.e. 31 cents/plant. If you go to Cornucopia3D (Vue shop) almost every plant you find is 10+$ for each species so I think that you can consider this a fair deal.

Obviously, with such price tag, the option of getting XFrogLite+XFrogTune (448$) becomes interesting (and I am sure that this was the reasoning behind this offer-you-cannot-refuse)

Bye!!!

...and congratulations for TG2 official release.

chromecity

Quote from: latego on April 23, 2009, 10:29:02 PMWell 400$ is a hit but... with this sum you get 1300 plants, i.e. 31 cents/plant. If you go to Cornucopia3D (Vue shop) almost every plant you find is 10+$ for each species so I think that you can consider this a fair deal.

Well you are comparing apples and oranges.  With the Xfrog plants, you get 3 styles of each of the different species.  That means that you will only ever have 3 different palm trees or 3 different maple trees and so forth.  You might think that you can use Xfrog or XfrogTUNE to modify those.  Ordinarily, with the regular $149 retail libraries, that is true.  But with these TGO-only libraries, that is not the case.  I own Xfrog stand-alone, XfrogTUNE, and Xfrog 4.2 for C4D, and I still would not be able to modify the TGO plants with any of those.

The Vue SolidGrowth plants on the other hand present you with a different variation of each plant every single time you create a new instance of that species.  They are certainly not limited to just 3 different styles.  And the SolidGrowth plants also react to Vue's wind dynamics which can make animations quite convincing.  I don't recall the TGO-only Xfrog plants having built-in support for anything like that.

Quote from: latego on April 23, 2009, 10:29:02 PMObviously, with such price tag, the option of getting XFrogLite+XFrogTune (448$) becomes interesting (and I am sure that this was the reasoning behind this offer-you-cannot-refuse)

Sorry, but this is not the case.  As stated above, Xfrog and XfrogTUNE can do nothing with the TGO-only plants.  You would just be wasting $448 if it were your intention to buy them for work with the 1300 TGO plants.

Aside from all the Xfrog products I already mentioned, I have also purchased a couple of the Xfrog libraries and upgraded them to the version 2.0 libraries at some point.  They are decent trees and plants, but even the 2.0 format is already 4 years old.  I'd expect to see them improve further at this point.  And if and when they do come out with a 3.0 format that is more detailed, I can already hear the uproar from however many folks end up purchasing the 1300 TGO plants and then find they'll have to pay another significant fee to update them all to 3.0. 

Up until now, I never had anything but positive respect for Stewart in the 10 years that I've dealt with Greenworks.  However, this entire tease-and-announce (stealing PS's thunder on their own turf) and then promise-and-reneg only to finally offer an all-or-nothing package has left me with a very sour taste for Greenworks right now.  The whole debacle was terribly mishandled time and again and I'd be very hard pressed to recommend Xfrog to anyone who's been dragged through this ordeal.  :(
Regards,

Jeff Andrews
Chrome City Studios / FX Models

Walli

Hi,

first of all I want to mention - just so that you know who I am - that some of the Xfrog plants have been made by me, I am one of the modellers. And I can assure you, that no one of use is driving Porsche or something similar. I guess you underestimate the time that is spend to create this stuff and probably you overestimate the amount of money that really makes it into the wallets of Greenworks.
I am not involved into business stuff of greenworks, so i can´t tell you much about. But as freelancer I also have some objects on turbosquid for example.
Now lets say an object/species/whatever costs 10$. 5$ stay at Turbosquid. From 5$ about 30% stay with tax remain 3.5$.
From this I have to pay software, hardware, elctricity and other office stuff. Then I have to pay insurance (and in germany this is a lot), I have to pay something for my rent. Only after paying all that, I can start to spend the rest on private stuff - which means I have to pay my flat, food for my family and everything else which you need to "survive".
I know that for many people it sounds crazy if you have to pay "so much" - but actually its just enough. I just repeat, thats my personal freelancer side of view.

I also know that other people offer stuff for cheap or even free (which I do also). But most of them just do it for fun and it buys them a meal or two. Then there are folks who simply don´t spend money for software. So I think you really have to judge a little bit more fair.

I think this Xfrog deal is a good thing. Yes, its out of the reach of many hobby users - but did anyone from Planetside or Xfrog ever mention that this is the only thing that is ever going to happen?

And I know that you can´t edit the TGO´s. If you want to edit plants, then you have to get the full bundles. But honestly, there are not many people out there who ever edit the plants. I know that especially professional users keep this door open - so that in case they have the option to edit plants. But in 99% of all projects they don´t have the time to generate custom variations.

When talking about Cornucopia - keep in mind that a lot of stuff you get there is copyright protected also - so again you can´t export, its bound to your Vue licencse. You will find objects that are cheap there, but expensive elsewhere. Thats because people don´t get it out of Vue.

About animation - I guess this is on Terragens side. You can animate Xfrog plants and if there will be a way to bring animated objects to Terragen, then you can have animated Xfrog plants.

About Solid Growth and automatic variations - thats a good point indeed. I have been a long time Vue fan and i like the idea of (semi)automatic variations. But actually I almost never used the built in plants. If at all, then for background purpose, never if it has to be something detailed in the foreground. And the Vue wind looks ugly in my eyes ;-) Unfortuanately thats something most developers stay away from. Best results i have seen so far was inisde Houdini, but I guess Houdini is also out of range for most people ;-)

So, that was a very long answer - just wanted to give you an insight into a xfrog-friendly-freelancers-life  ;)

best,
Walli

cbb

#100
I am in the UK and out of curiosity I went through the process of buying the Xfrog plants, to see what the shipping charge would be, but stopped short of paying. Shipping is $24  which is fair enough but when i got to the checkout I was going to be charged 19% VAT. VAT in the UK is 15% at the moment so that certainly needs sorting out. I'm not paying 4% more VAT than I should. Also will the customs label state that VAT has been paid or am I going to be charged VAT again when I receive it. Normally with physical goods as I understand it the VAT is paid when the goods enter the country not at the point of sale.

Another point, it seems to get the plants you have to buy the animation version. I paid for the version without animation a while ago so with my $199 discount I, and anyone else not wanting animation will effectively be paying $500 for the plants not $400. I know I will then get animation as well but I don't really want or need animation.

I am considering buying the plants but I would like clarification of these points first.

Colin

Walli

I will forward your VAT question to Stewart, but please do also write a mail to sales@xfrog.com.

About your second question - I am not sure i understand what you mean. The plants of the Terragen-Xfrog deal come only in TGO format. Its not possible to edit them with Xfrog anymore , its static meshes.
Apart from that, you always can load *.xfr files into the lite or full version of Xfrog 3.5. I never tried, but even if the xfr file is animated, you should be able to open with Xfrog lite, you just will get the first frame of the animation then.

Mohawk20

No Walli, his second question is about the package. He has to pay $500 in stead of $400 because he has to purchase the animation module on TG with the plants, because of the creative deduction system...
Howgh!

Goms

I think this discussion left the point where it was "about the topic".
Ok, we all have expected some cool free stuff for TG2 from Greenworks, maybe 10 plants or something. Also it would have been, lets say, from a strategic point of view better to first give the free Stuff or offer it beside the package. But as it has been written now that there will be some more free stuff from Planetside and Greenworks (if i understood it right), we can forget that we have expected something else than this bundle and better say "thank you" for an offer, that is absolutely great. Its not fair to bash around on Greenworks when they offer this huge discount to the TG2 community.

Maybe there is a possibility for Greenworks to offer the single packages with this discount for TG2 Users to download. And i can imagine that they are thinking about something like this at the moment.
In other words: lets come down a little bit and give them some days to think about what have been said (and hope, that they can ignore the way it was said (in some posts)).

@Greenworks: thank you so far for this offer. But is an offer for single .tgo-only packages with discount (for download, so there are no costs for the DVD etc.) something, that would be possible? I think many Users would love to download packages for maybe 25$-35$ per package.
(Of course i don't know what deal about the pricing you have with Planetside, i just took the 400$/20+5$.)
Quote from: FrankB
you're never going to finish this image ;-)

cbb

Quote from: Mohawk20 on April 24, 2009, 04:32:09 AM
No Walli, his second question is about the package. He has to pay $500 in stead of $400 because he has to purchase the animation module on TG with the plants, because of the creative deduction system...

Yes that's what I meant, perhaps I didn't put that very clearly. To get the plants it seems I have to pay for Terragen 2 with animation, but I don't want animation. Therefore I will be paying an extra $100 for something I don't want. Apart from that I think it's a good deal.

Colin