Question about upgrading to Terragen 4

[Marcos Silveira]

I hear that that's your decision and I somewhat understand your reasoning. What's interesting to me is to consider what might have happened if we had never made the Animation vs. non-Animation distinction in the first place, i.e. back when we released Terragen 2, it had just been Professional and Creative (we did not have that distinction at the time, of course). Would you have ever bought TG then, at all? Or would you have thought "that product includes animation, which I don't need, so I won't buy it"?

I guess my question is this: are you saying that you think the absolute price is too high for the value you get from the product at this point? OR are you saying that you think it could/should be cheaper if we just didn't include this particular feature that you don't happen to need, and therefore you won't buy on principle (so to speak)? Or are you saying something else entirely?

We are definitely open to considering how to best price and position Terragen products and are interested in feedback like yours.

As for support of Terragen 3, we will continue to offer technical support for the life of the product. However we won't be publishing any new resources explicitly aimed at TG3. Some (such as TGOs) may still work with TG3 as the TGO format hasn't changed, and in general object files are broadly compatible. But our focus for development of both features and content is firmly on TG4 at this point. NWDA and other vendors will make their own choices on how they target their content. It should fortunately be fairly easy for vendors to make most content compatible with TG3, at least as an alternative with possibly some missing features/quality vs. TG4.

- Oshyan

I have to admit that I'm completely with him on that decision. Unfortunately, of course!! I can't recall paying so much for a full version of TG. I've been in love with this program since day one and have upgraded until now but the overall price for upgrading from TG 3 is too steep!!! Why not doing what has been done in the past (sell two versions, one with and one without animation)? I'm only a hobbyist.

[Matt]

We don't want to lose customers, especially people who have been with us since the start. With every release we think very carefully about our upgrade prices and try to balance lots of different factors.

A few days ago we added a new upgrade path for owners of TG3 Professional (with or without animation). You can upgrade to either TG4 Creative or TG4 Professional. Note that Creative doesn't have all of the features of Professional, so you will lose some features if upgrading from TG3 Professional. But you might not need those features, especially if you were using TG2 Deep and upgraded to TG3 Professional because that was the only option back then. We hope that TG4 Creative will be an affordable and attractive offer for someone who doesn't need the extra Pro features.

More info here:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,22187.msg223743.html#msg223743

Matt

[otakar]

That's good news. Thanks for thinking of us long-time customers. I'll have to check what the actual upgrade cost would be to go to Creative 4, and what exactly I would lose with this, I guess the new website will cover that. The price difference between Creative and Pro is very significant, just to point that out.

[otakar]

I found that the comparison chart has been updated for TG4: http://planetside.co.uk/terragen-product-comparison/

The only thing I would really miss at this point is the spherical camera. Knowing that the Professional upgrade is not an option due to cost, I will have to weigh the TG4 improvements vs the crossgrade expense and functionality restrictions. Still on the fence.

[KirillK]

I have Terragen2 Pro without animation .  Or maybe it was called "Deep edition" or something , I don't remember.         My upgrade option is   $449?   Right?       I mean  to a similar level of features?   

[Oshyan]

Yes, that's correct.

- Oshyan

I have Terragen2 Pro without animation .  Or maybe it was called "Deep edition" or something , I don't remember.         My upgrade option is   $449?   Right?       I mean  to a similar level of features?   

[bobbystahr]

I found that the comparison chart has been updated for TG4: http://planetside.co.uk/terragen-product-comparison/

The only thing I would really miss at this point is the spherical camera. Knowing that the Professional upgrade is not an option due to cost, I will have to weigh the TG4 improvements vs the crossgrade expense and functionality restrictions. Still on the fence.

Matt posted a multi camera work around for the spherical thing but you need a stitcher after I think.