Lightwave 12 - HardCore Notice

[extra]

I want to buy American! I'm never gonna pay 19% german VAT! Leave me worry about my local tax and customs.

[allabulle]

Charter is irrelevant now, then. A few bucks won't make me upgrade to keep it. I can buy other things too and pay a bit more at a later stage if I want to upgrade LightWave. That is if they don't change the usual upgrading scheme along the product naming. It seems not, though.

So I'm trying the release now; but not upgrading until I see how does it work and if I really need what's new.

[Megalodon2.0]

They already said this... if people have upgraded within the last 30 days, they get it free anyway. Seems fair to me!
If you're unlucky and upgraded on day 31 it would be a bit of a sad day though!

However I don't think this included Hardcore membership since you are not allowed to skip ANY upgrades in order to keep your membership pricing. Therefore if you want to keep your "5 upgrade pricing" you are required to purchase ALL upgrades - not skip. At least that's my understanding.

[robpowers3d]

So those of us who bought into the Charter at the first deadline get $100 off and those who bought in before the final deadline get zip. Now, everyone gets the second Charter deal. The deal has evaporated. Seems to me that if the entire price structure has been lowered, that Charter members of both types should get something extra off for buying in when NewTek was asking for an infusion of cash. At least make the Charter savings proportional to the new pricing as it was proportional to the old. Or have I missed an announcement?

I'll post this here as well because it applies to your quesiton:

If you are in Post Charter it is currently the same upgrade price with the pricing offered at this launch but with your HardCore post charter price guarantee you have no concerns about the price changing at any point for the period of your 5 upgrades. In fact we just came out of a period where the price for upgrades was $695 which HardCORE members were not affected by at all.

Having locked pricing is a benefit in my opinion but it is up to you to determine if you find it to be something that you wish to continue. As far as I am aware the HardCORE pricing guarantee did not insure that your post charter pricing level would always be less than the regular pricing although for the charter members it is because they receive such a large discount.

I've also softened the policy by offering a 30 day grace period for those that have not yet upgraded to the 11.x cycle at the time of the 2015 release as the policy states that those HardCORE memberships would expire upon release of the next paid upgrade.

[robpowers3d]

However I don't think this included Hardcore membership since you are not allowed to skip ANY upgrades in order to keep your membership pricing. Therefore if you want to keep your "5 upgrade pricing" you are required to purchase ALL upgrades - not skip. At least that's my understanding.

That is correct and is detailed in the HardCore guidelines and mentioned numerous times. Upgrading to each paid upgrade version is a requirement to maintain HardCORE. There has been an extremely long window of time to upgrade to 11.x and since the first communications we inlcuded gentle warnings to not wait too late because of this exact reason.

[lwaddict]

Looking it over and although there are some enhancements...
I don't see any reason to upgrade.

I've already got Nevron which, IMO, was a dud.
Don't get me started on Chronosculpt...
And was there when HardCore was a version of Lightwave and not just a membership group.

I will probably upgrade eventually... heck, I've been a Lightwave user since 5.5...
but currently, in the Bay Area (CA, USA), you'd be hard pressed to get a job without knowing "the other" programs out there.
Budget has to go in that direction for now.

And for what it's worth... I love that Lightwave's latest iteration will help us match perspective to a still image...
It's 2015, this is an animation package... Hello? <cough Camera Tracking?> <cough>

[robpowers3d]

Looking it over and although there are some enhancements...
I don't see any reason to upgrade.

I've already got Nevron which, IMO, was a dud.
Don't get me started on Chronosculpt...
And was there when HardCore was a version of Lightwave and not just a membership group.

I will probably upgrade eventually... heck, I've been a Lightwave user since 5.5...
but currently, in the Bay Area (CA, USA), you'd be hard pressed to get a job without knowing "the other" programs out there.
Budget has to go in that direction for now.

And for what it's worth... I love that Lightwave's latest iteration will help us match perspective to a still image...
It's 2015, this is an animation package... Hello? <cough Camera Tracking?> <cough>

Hi lwaddict,
I'm similar to your involvement as far as being a paying HardCORE charter member and using LightWave since the earliest days. For sure every user has to make the right choices for themselves but we are seeing many of our LightWave artists in the Burbank / Los Angeles area are employed more than not.

[geo_n]

Does this mean lw 10 hardcore members have to be upgraded twice?

[Surrealist.]

This release is pretty much what I expected. Gradually adding more features and enhancing what is there. (as well as promised under-the- hood stuff) Only so many hours in the day.

One of my concerns was that you would leave Bullet as is and move on. No constraints was a deal breaker for me on the first release. So I am glad you have continued to enhance the areas of the program that were introduced with LW 11.

My only other real complaint is that you don't talk here more in between. Granted in your defense, there seems not much to talk about given what the release had. I mean at least you have done what you said you'd do, and it has been consistent.

But I really think you need to revisit the silent treatment issue. It is not a good idea IMHO.

As for 12, nothing there yet to get me reaching for my card, but it does seem like a solid release and it is good to see steady progress which is pretty much all anyone can expect.

I just think people need more interaction and a constant reminder of this fact.

[mborge]

So I watched the LW 2015 video and it looks cool but, I don't really see any Modeler love etc.

Also, once again as I said, there's no real price incentive for me having remained w/ 10.

I think this is my departure point as I spend more time sculpting and modeling nowadays.

Can we still sell our LW licenses? - I can't remember if they changed that but, I sort of remember something about it in an email.

[ernpchan]

So I watched the LW 2015 video and it looks cool but, I don't really see any Modeler love etc.

Also, once again as I said, there's no real price incentive for me having remained w/ 10.

I think this is my departure point as I spend more time sculpting and modeling nowadays.

Can we still sell our LW licenses? - I can't remember if they changed that but, I sort of remember something about it in an email.

You can. There is a processing fee now. You could pass that on to the new buyer.

[jeric_synergy]

And for what it's worth... I love that Lightwave's latest iteration will help us match perspective to a still image...
It's 2015, this is an animation package... Hello? <cough Camera Tracking?> <cough>

The verbiage used is:

Whether matching plates or simply placing objects into photographs, matching the camera position and rotation is a tedious process. With the new Match Perspective tool this chore is now a breeze. Using simple on-screen gizmos to feed information to the Match Solver means you can sync your LightWave camera to an original photo or plate quickly.

While the video is a little ambiguous, it seems to be matching a tilting camera. The use of 'plate' versus 'still' seems to indicate that more than just STILLS are addressed.

[JohnMarchant]

I like some of the new features especially bullet updates but for me i want to see things that have been there for some time addressed. HV and to a lesser extent particles could do with some love. Text tools and modeler in general seem to have had very little TLC. Did Modeler get some hydra, can we handle bigger models without it slowing to a crawl. The tools we have need integrating more, many tools do similar jobs, much more interactivity needed.

I think i will wait a bit, i want to see what the requirements for LWCAD 5 are, beta should be around Christmas time last time i spoke to Viktor. If LWCAD 5 works well with LW 11.6.3 i may not upgrade to 2015, well not right away as there is not allot there for me apart from bullet enhancements.

I really need to spend some time learning Houdini Indie and Blender and i think that's where my time needs to be spent now.

[mborge]

Thanks ernpchan that helped me remember and track down the $100 dollar transfer fee, so now my LW10.1 is up for sale in the "For Sale" thread:

http://forums.newtek.com/showthread....cense-for-sale

Would save some money for anyone looking at a new seat of LW2015.

[kopperdrake]

My Hardcore charter price was cheaper... It was £295, seemed like a great deal to me! My work license said post charter and was also the same price.

Weird - I have one Charter and one Post Charter, and together they came to £570, minus VAT. With EU Vat they would have been an extra 19% on. I can't remember how much the Post Charter was, but the Charter was £299, including VAT, so the Post Charter must have been around £380, including EU VAT.

It's all a bit odd, but still much of a muchness - I'm just waiting for Customer Support to get back to me as I can only download one license key - the one attached to the Post Charter Product ID - the key attached to my Charter Product ID just states I'm trying to upgrade a product already upgraded. I'm sure they'll sort it out in due course, just chaping at the bit as the key that works is for Gaz sitting next to me, smug bugger!