Comercial Future of Indigo

General questions about Indigo, the scene format, rendering etc...
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Apollux3D
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Comercial Future of Indigo

Post by Apollux3D » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:26 am

OK, I'm starting this thread out of the big asumption that Nicholas Chapman has comercial plans for Indigo. I have no evidence of the fact, just a hunch. But seen the polls that has been posted lately, I guess there is something in the works about this.

I'll say it again:I HAVE NO OFFICIAL NOR CERTAIN INFORMATION ABOUT A COMERCIAL VERSION OF INDIGO.

Like someone who likes Indigo and would definitly buy a comercial license of it, assumming it is within a reasonable price and has the right support options and features, this are some suggestions.

What would be a reasonable price? For a senior Architecture student, who isn't part of a big firm and is about to start his own business... anything under US$500.00 for a final presentation renderer would be a reasonable price. I guess a big coorporation could pay more, but not me not now.

However, I wouldn't pay for Indigo on it's current state. First it needs some features and some support options that aren't in yet. In order of priorities:
  • * Direct Export from my design package, without in-between 3rd party softwares. Namely, "Comercial Indigo" would need to ship with a working export pluging for the main architectural desing applications (VectorWorks, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, SkechtUp Pro, etc.). I'm a VectorWorks user, but the others has their fallowing as well.

    You see on the polls that most users are hobbyst and are using Blender. It isn't a surprize given that most of Blender users are hobbyst and it hast (probably) the best Indigo exporter out there. If Nicolas wants to introduce Indigo to a more business-oriented audience, then Indigo has to play nicely with the software the audience is already using.

    * Linux support. Natively or trough Wine (already done). As a budget minded professional, If I'm deploying a render farm, it is more that likely that it will be a Linux farm.

    * More speed ! :D

    * Tech support (this could be charged extra or by time subscription). If I'm starting a BIG contract work and I decide to do the renderings with Indigo, I need the peace of mind of knowing that If things go crazy at the last minute, there is someone I could call and will answer my questions and help me get the job done in time.

    * Rendering of Videos... see why I need more speed ?
These are just some ideas, jump up and add your own. (And Nicolas, If you are reading, give us some insight :P )

Koba
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Post by Koba » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:59 am

I sincerely hope Nick won't charge for indigo directly. Your ideas of tech support and charging for Maya/Max/Houdini exporters are good however.

If Indigo cost even $1 I wouldn't pay for it. If a donation page were set up I would would be willing to donate up to $40 to show support or free the indigo sources. :-)

Oh, and yes, I have given similar donations to other great OSS projects evne though I am a poor student!

Koba

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CTZn
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Post by CTZn » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:53 am

Wtf Apollux3D ?
And Nicolas, If you are reading, give us some insight
That's the point, end of it ! Stop Blah Blah everyone ! Oh, and what if Indigo was for me my self only ???
As a budget minded professional
GTFO ! Give money to Nick and don't wait nor ask for something special !!! You trust him or you don't !

Or is it me ???

Sorry for that :evil:

BTW: want my opinion on polls !?

I'm repeating myself here: If there is a need, there is a community too.

:arrow: :arrow:

Oh, and
anything under US$500.00 for a final presentation renderer would be a reasonable price. I guess a big coorporation could pay more, but not me not now.
Lol I see. What a pity :twisted:

Insidious !!!

Kachu
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Post by Kachu » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:04 pm

I gotta agree with Koba, charging for Indigo would break the community apart. A donation page would be great for those wishing to support the community/Nick. Servicing the website/forum and keeping the servers running costs money, and thats without Nick spending any time working on his little coding project.

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afecelis
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Post by afecelis » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:10 pm

oh dear, here we go again; another "Indigo Will Go Commercial Discussion"..... :roll: :roll: :roll:
You see on the polls that most users are hobbyst and are using Blender. It isn't a surprize given that most of Blender users are hobbyst and it hast (probably) the best Indigo exporter out there.
Whoa! that sounds a bit contemptuous with blender. Believe me blender has stopped being a hobbyist toy and has become a pro app; perhaps not too CAD oriented, but its evolution is lightspeed faster than any development plans any other 3d package out there may have. I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who has used Autocad for more than 10 years and 3dsmax (before known as 3d studio, in its DOS days) for more than 8. I also used to look at blender from above my shoulder and thought: "who needs that toy when you got 3dsmax blah blah blah". Well, the world is changing my friend, and so is its people. Not only has blender become my everyday modeling and rendering tool, but it has also become my best alternative to stop paying those astronomical fees for updates per year that offer me nothing new. Add to that the whole bunch of plugins you have to buy to put max in a decent rendering level (yup, expensive ones)-and I know Max has got Mental Ray since Max6- I'm not saying blender is better than max or maya or softimage, etc. I'm just pointing out that the fact that it's free doesn't make it a bad application. As a matter of fact, blender is the most advanced, revolutionary, and complex in concept program out there. It's time people understand blender is now major leagues. Someone said sometime; think of any plugin out there for any 3d package and google for it for blender; you'll see there's already a python script that does the job or post it in the appropriate forums and a python guru will be able to write for you...and the community. Even Maya has started using some blender plugins given its python-oriented plugin architecture ;)

Now as a side note, I find the possibility of a commercial plugin for blender to be interesting. Perhaps not an expensive plugin, but maybe on a sale scheme that fits it's philosophy; something like: "buy blendigo plugin for $$$$ and 5% of every sale will go to the blender foundation" hehehehehe. :wink:

Now, you mention some non-hobbyists serious pro apps... man, it's the 1st time in my life I hear about Vector works. Googling about it. :D

oh yes, and I still use my old, rusty copy of Max; specilly now that U3dreal has re-injected all that power into the Max2Indigo exporter, but it feels so darn nice to use blender and see how responsive and effective it is!!!

phewh! catharsis mode off. :wink:

ps. To make things worse, now people are asking if it's possible to buy pre-licenses of Indigo.... Fryrender, anyone?
Last edited by afecelis on Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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psor
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Post by psor » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:37 pm

:shock: I just wanna add my two cents ... Maybe at some point "the community"
could think about to convince Nick to sell the code. I mean how much could it
cost? How much would "the community" pay for an opensource spectral MLT
renderer? But that's another story. :D ;)

PS.: Sweet dreams! :twisted:



take care
psor
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Apollux3D
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Post by Apollux3D » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:37 pm

To CTZn: Everyone is entitled to it´s own opinion. So...

Afecelis, don't mean to disrespect, but you are barking at the wrong tree. If there is someone you don' t need to convince about Blender' s positive points is me. Just to prove my point, if you go to www.blender.org you'll see that I'm the author of the Blender-Linux FAQ, I'm a member of the Linux-Blender platform team, I write for the BlenderArt Magazine and.. I guess the point is clear.

I know how good Blender is, but I also know where it isn't that good, and as you mentioned CAD is one of those areas where Blender just isn't up to the task.

About VectorWorks, it is the closer competitor to Autodesk AutoCAD. AutoCAD is positioned as the Industry leader, while VW is positioned as the price leader among the big players. Here in Santo Domingo (a 8 million citizen citty) VW have about 50% of the CAD market.

And for those rooting for "The Community". Why is a commercial version of Indigo such an alarming though? As far as I remember, Blender was a commercial program that gave away old versions for free and that never hindered "the comunity". Same is true for Caligary TrueSpace.

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afecelis
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Post by afecelis » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:59 pm

ahhh! no wonder your nick sounded so familiar!
I just checked about VW but found no pricing info; you gotta contact a reseller so no idea of its price range. My favorite CAD alternative is Intellicad; any of its distros is good but my favorites are Progesoft and Cadopia (BricsCad is also good). You can get a fully 100% compatible autocad format version for US$200, and that compared to the almost US$4000 Autocad costs is surely a money saver. Intellicad has also got 3d modeling capabilities and an internal renderer making it a really cheap, efficient and compatible choice and has a built-in pdf exporter, and the commands are exactly the same as autocad, which for me (being an oldie, accustomed to entering everything via keyboard)is a great advantage as my workflow doesn't change.
Bricscad has got expensive addons like architecturals which also work on autocad but the main app is still very affordable.

you can even download a free version of progecad 2006 which is like autocad LT, no 3d capabilities, for free, even for commercial use. It' what I use now for all my 2d drawing.
http://www.progecad.com/
And, finally, to get stuff properly from CAD to blender, this is what I'm doing; Draw in progecad, save as dwg; import the cleaned-up dwg in Google sketchup, export to kmz, import into blender and there you got a 1:1 drawing correspondence. I'm still waiting for better snapping options to draw on top of this 2d layout or to get an enhanced version of the kmz blender importer that would get the polylines properly exported, making it only a matter of extruding in blender :wink:

so, blender is getting close....
getting back on topic: renderers like Vray, Final Render, Brazil, Maxwell, etc. are on a steep price range that mainly firms would be willing to pay for or individuals with strong flow of cad-viz work. Right now indigo is indeed great for stills with a great level of detail and realism. Don´t know if other render engines are ready for animation; the only one I got is Final Render and they offer an alternative GI engine for animation called HyperGI whic is faster and doesn´t produce blotches between frames. Indigo would need to find a solution for this. But definitely its price would have to be something affordable...friendly. Yet it would totally break the community appart :(
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CTZn
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Post by CTZn » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:23 pm

Like someone who likes Indigo and would definitly buy a comercial license of it
But why is it ?

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psor
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Post by psor » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:55 pm

Apollux3D wrote: ... And for those rooting for "The Community". Why is a commercial version of Indigo such an alarming though? As far as I remember, Blender was a commercial program that gave away old versions for free and that never hindered "the comunity". Same is true for Caligary TrueSpace.
I would like to try to answer this question from my POV. In my years that I
use 3d applications, I haven't seen many people capable of coding a good
renderer or realtime engine. One of my tutors at school told us, that those
people are like 'cavetrolls'. He was one of them himself. ;o)

What could happen is, that the comercial version would get much more
attention as the free version, that's almost obvious, because Nick is coding
this software on his own. So who would be able of doing the job on the
free version? I'm just wondering.

Of course it's Nicks decision and I'll not tell him what to do in any way. But
I don't like to see the same posts as on the Maxwell and fryrender forum,
but that's my problem. :P :D ;)

And now keep smiling guys, ... life is to short ... and I'm here because I
want to, not because I have to. ;o))




take care
psor
"The sleeper must awaken"

jtmjtm2001
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Post by jtmjtm2001 » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:24 pm

I'm willing to to make a donation if being accepted or buy a merchandise in a
form of a t-shirt or other items. I have bought merchandise from Povray, Blender and made donations to other software makers and organizations.

John Morris
John T Morris

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CTZn
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Post by CTZn » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:33 pm

We are willing to help if this is needed. Our pleasure.

Love your faq Radiance, it's like a fresh breeze here ;)

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eman7613
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Post by eman7613 » Tue Dec 05, 2006 3:55 am

I don't mean to offend, but think twice before you start a company if your asking to pay for free software :roll:

Now it may just be me, but i distinctly remember a powerful Video card coming out called the geforce 8800 by a company that has a 3d program called gelato that can use an nvida based GPU to render the final image that might be worth looking into.

And just to help ya out the pro version is 1.5k for the first year then 300 after that (including updates). (if i remember correctly)
Yes i know, my spelling sucks

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