I'm not talking about Maxon's (Cinema 4D) tech support. I'm sure that its great. I'm talking about their corporate attitude toward students, faculty, and hobbyist. Years ago Maxon (like RealSoft won) used to be agressive about getting their software into the hands of new users. They re-released their old version 6 as 6CE (or maybe 6SE) at something like 1/10th its original price. They promoted this in magazines like 3D World much like RealSoft did just this last month. Their academic version had a single price of about $250 and the license didn't expire.
Now they are different. Maxon's lowest academic price is only for full time students/faculty who are using C4D. Otherwise its about double that price. ($500 starts to get pretty prohibitive.) Also the license of the latest academic version of C4D expires after a couple years. (which makes it more costly for non-traditional students that are in a slower part-time student situation, as they have to pay to renew the license.) Maxon no longer re-releases old versions to hobbyists like I am now. They've now achieve a level of success and no longer try to attract new users the way that they did before. And here is my particular gripe with Maxon. I bought my academic version (as I was teaching at a community college back than and wanted to get the school to teach something more than just Bryce) and did so when the current version was R8. But it was shortly before the release of R8.5. There was an offer to upgrade for free to R8.5 when it was released. But at that time I was both teaching and being the primary caregiver for my elderly mother. I got the software, learned to use it well enough, liked it a lot, but failed to get the school to take interest in offering several courses in using it. When R8.5 came out I called AcademicSuperStore.com (where I bought the R8 version), but they said that I was wrong about any upgrade offer. I couldn't find my paperwork. But my mother's health was going downhill and I got busy with taking care of her. Years later (last year) I found the original shipping box that someone had used to put some of my mother's things in, and in the bottom of the box was the invoice and sure enough, right on the paperwork, it said "free upgrade to R8.5. I called the AcademicSuperStore people and they said that the upgrade would have had to come from Maxon. I sent Maxon email and they said the upgrade offer would have been through AcademicSuperStore. I called the store again and argued with them, they finally admitted that yes, they were the ones to provide the upgrade, and should have back then, but will no longer honor the agreement as they could not, as they could no provide such an old version. I contacted Maxon and they had no interest in providing the upgrade offer either. They said that they had no copies of old versions. (Now, really, would not a company like Maxon keep archives of every old version they had?) Once admitting that I was entitled to the R8.5 version, all it would have taken was to someone to make me several discs from some archive and provide me with activation codes. But no, even though both parties finally admitted that I was entitled to the upgrade, neither would honor that. Henry On 7/10/09, Arjo Rozendaal <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Henry, > > I work a lot with C4D and I can't confirm Maxon has a bad attitude. When I > meat a real problem that I can't solve with the help of regular fora I > always get an answer from Maxon within a day. But there might be a > difference in their approach towards users that bought the latest version > instead of users working with older ones. I can imagine they don't like to > answer to old bugs all the time when these bugs have been solved in later > versions. > > Arjo. > > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] Namens Henry Tjernlund > Verzonden: donderdag 9 juli 2009 23:56 > Aan: [email protected] > Onderwerp: Re: Snapping > > Thanks. I hope that I can keep track of all that. I have used other > software. The ones I like is where the interface is easy and > consistent. For me, the interface can really make a big difference in > how well I use the program. So far my favorite is Cinema 4D, though my > version is an older one (R8) that I got on academic discount when I > was teaching a few years ago. C4D used to be very nice to their user > base, but now (like so many other program makers, once they achieve > success) they have gone all "rock-star" with their attitude. I also > have Rhino (v3) and Vue 4 Desprit. In every program I seem to find > strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, for me the interface seems > critical and I have to admit, that having played with RS for only a > couple weeks since buying the magazine (3D World) that it may be a > little too non-standard and counter intuitive for me. But I'll keep > trying at it. > > -- > -- > Henry Tjernlund > http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=henrytj > http://www.modelmayhem.com/HenryTjernlund > http://imdb.com/name/nm2519729/ > http://www.myspace.com/henrytj > http://henrytj.deviantart.com/ > > -- -- Henry Tjernlund http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=henrytj http://www.modelmayhem.com/HenryTjernlund http://imdb.com/name/nm2519729/ http://www.myspace.com/henrytj http://henrytj.deviantart.com/
