Well…hmmm…let’s see….plans for Hexagon….gee, I can’t imagine what they might….
THEY GAVE IT AWAY FOR FREE !!!! Did you guys miss that??
It has become solely a tool to generate content sales. That’s it. Why would they have even the slightest incentive to invest another penny in costly development of software that is only useful to get people to buy content??? As long as people see a cool package of free software, and it works reasonably well, it’s doing its job. Period.
And do the people who it’s drawing in give a damn if Hexagon has fancy new features it doesn’t already have? For the most part NO, because the market is for people who want to buy premade stuff, drop it in their scenes, and hit RENDER. Some might play with the free modeller, but for the vast majority modelling is WAY too complicated and too deep, when all they want to do is use content and make renders. Which is why Poser and D|S don’t even have modellers built in. And these new users have invested ZERO in the software, which means they could, and would, drop it at a moment’s notice and move on to the latest video game without giving it a second thought.
If people have to spend hundreds of $$ for software, it means they’re somewhat serious and probably intend to use it for a long period, and are probably very hesitant to drop it and move on to some other interest. You’re attracting fairly serious artists or hobbyists or whatever. Not so when you give it away. You’re getting, for the most part, a short term surge in content sales for as long as the buzz lasts. And once that’s over, what do you do? You can’t lower the price any lower on Hexagon (or Bryce, or D/S), so somehow you have to keep new content buyers coming in. And how many new content buyers are you going to attract by hyping the fact that Hexagon 3 now has voxel sculpting and retopology? Most will scratch their heads and say, “yeah, whatever….”
You can argue all day long that it’s going to attract people who really care about new Hex tools and features, but only time will tell. I think the chances are slim to none. And anyone who thinks that the content sales that Hex generates are going to cover development costs to keep developers working on Hex are, IMO, dreaming.
One developer working for a year probably costs something like $100k total (I’m guessing). How many sets of Genesis clothes is that?
I didn’t miss that it’s being given away. DAZ probably has put Hex and Bryce on the free list as you can’t expect to complain about software you are getting for free. DS4 Pro, that’s obvious, they will get those suckers back with the next version.
It’s clear that DAZ has serious issues when it comes to time and resource management. I’ve seen it before in companies that have nothing to do with software. Publishing, auto parts manufacturing take your pick. They start on something and some bean counter or marketing person strolls in and stops them and re-tasks them to something else.
In Hex’s case, they update the code to work on Macs. They stuff up some of the code, like in previous versions, as they are under the pump. They move on and then tell us they have stopped Hex’s development cycle for now. It’s throwing a satchel charge into the room, beating it out the door and locking it behind them. They have done it before.
The people that come to DAZ’s defense will often point out that DAZ has limited resources, cash, insert any other excuse here. If I did this in my job, or any other, I am told “Your excuses are your own!”
And that’s that.
I don’t thnk DAZ is concerned about people using Hex for content creation or what not. If they would have taken care of the issues a couple of year ago they could be charging the $149 or what ever it was then. Now they are doing it to Carrara with the guise of adding Genesis fuctionality and a few extras and maybe some bug fixes all for the price of a minor fee and over two years of development time.
So the point of this rambling? Switch to another software or put up with DAZ’s poor buisness practices. I used to buy a RPG line quite a long time ago but the publisher was always late with new source marterial or left things he said was coming out go for years. In the end, I left it all behind.
If someone says they are going to do something and the keep saying it and never do it or do it years later then they have no credability. In that case it depends on how long you wish to be led by the nose because they are cheaper than the next guy. I’ll pay for good software, even If I have to put the money back for a bit or have Visa send hitmen out for me. So when I can, here I come Modo.
Maybe everybody else might, just might think about doing the same. Or be led by the nose for longer than you have now. And I don’t think it would be 100k a year, DAZ developers would be on a salary per year but I couldn’t guess how they budget for work on each application.
DaRkWyNdE
