Hobby VS Professional

[Seth]

 
la crise mondiale touche aussi la France, malheureusement...
pour information, je comprend ton soucis d'argent, je gagne personnellement 1700$ Canadien par mois... donc l'achat du bundle Xfrog est pour moi totallement irréalliste 
ceci dit, Planetside a, je pense, fais le bon choix pour leur société en s'associant à Xfrog... peut-etre que dans un futur plus ou moins proche nous auront droit à quelques freebies sympathiques.
de toute façon, les packs de plantes ont toujours été sacrément chers... et comme vous dites : "l'argent ne pousse pas sur les arbres" ^^


sorry guys for this french blah blah but it feels sooooo good to speak french with a canadian cousin some times

[rcallicotte]

I agree.

Planetside should focus on TG development and support, it's more than enough work

[xfrog]

hi, we try to make together with planetside something that has many plants, and that both companies can hold up to competition, and as well tools for users of high quality. for both companies have a deep investment in the quality of realism before anything else.  terragen does not issue code that creates bad quality images.  we spent 10+ years making and remaking and remaking plant modeling by botanical experts.  we could sell small plant bundles or individual models of plants at low cost for terragen 2 user.   we do already do this on turbosquid, cornucopia3d, daz3d, renderosity and these all work inside Terragen 2 (OBJ import)   it conceptually seemed better to offer what may be more symbiotic with planetside tg2 ideal. we both make something if bundle is successful.  if it is not, we make not profit, but planetside still always have tg2 without plants.  and as such, you are not ever forced to buy plants from xfrog.  in any case - we try to do bundle.  maybe it does not succeed.  maybe only way is to sell clusters and individuals. which gives no direct profit to planetside. some secondary sales, yes.  bundle is very agressive price per plant. and serious number of plant options.  flowers, bushes, grasses, underwater plants, prehistoric, and nearly all regions of world are represented in detail.

content prices depend on number of users of underlying software.  if there are 100, or 10000, or 100,000 user - it determine price options for content seller.  hobbyist or professional is not how we set price. we set price based on potential sales related to underlying users of the software.  a price point which also makes possible to exist as a company.

-xfrog

Seth, I understand your point of view. Terragen 2 is a very good software of creations and rendering. I agree with you. However, it is more complete with plants. And if I must content myself with some free plants, I am restricted in my creation.
I wish better one collaboration between Planetside and Xfrog. Especially, I want Planetside to defend the point of view of the hundreds of hobbysts which encourages it in front of Xfrog. I am not sure of the happy marriage of this two businesses nowadays.

[rcallicotte]

Dear xfrog - Anders has a good point - http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=6178.msg65582#msg65582

[latego]

content prices depend on number of users of underlying software.  if there are 100, or 10000, or 100,000 user - it determine price options for content seller.  hobbyist or professional is not how we set price. we set price based on potential sales related to underlying users of the software.  a price point which also makes possible to exist as a company.

Well, hobbyist and professional have completely different approaches to buying.

A professional asks himself "does this tool cost less than my time to recreate content?" and given usual hourly wage of professional graphics, e.g. a 150$ TurboSquid mesh is a sensible proposition.

The hobbyists, on the other hand, operates under a more or less fixed budget. As soon as the price goes out of the impulse buying range, sales collapse. If you set a price that makes hobbyists ask themselves "is it really worth the price?" you have lost most of the potential sales. If anybody put on Renderosity or Cornucopia3D or DAZ a 150$ mesh, they would be greeted with laughs and would not sell even a single copy.

I think that the only sensible solution for a third party firm is to subdivide its product range into professional and consumer ranges and price accordingly items (obviously restricting all the features a professional might want in the high range line).

For example for the tree subject, I would create medium resolution meshes for hobbyists and high/medium/low resolution ones for professionals. Professionals need to have highly detailed foreground plants for high quality renders and might need low poly ones for mass scenes or games, while hobbyist can live with a half way.

Bye!!!

[Mars Mug]

There's also the 'Mrs Factor'. While I can afford to pay for a package of objects, I have to justify this with the Mrs, and if she finds that it's more than the cost of a new bedroom carpet I'm on to a loser.

I would happily pay double the price for individual objects compared to the same object price as part of a package.