Prices and a release date have been announced for Corona Renderer 1.0 for 3DS Max. A tentative date of November has been set for the release and prices will vary based on a choice of month-to-month subscription vs. a permanent license. Features in the 1.0 release include:
- Full Featured Interactive Rendering
- SSSR – Sub Surface Scattering Revolution
- GGX Microfacet Model
- New Corona Scatter
- New Blend Material
- New UHD Cache for Animations
- Speed improvements: approximately 25%
The standalone, Maya and Cinema 4D versions will be kept free until they are stable and feature-complete enough for commercial release. For full details, you can visit the Corona Renderer website.
Gotta say I’m a little sad that it’s not free anymore – it was like the poor man’s Vray! Great to see the makers getting some traction, though.
The prices seem more than fair, but very disappointing to see that render nodes need to be licensed. I’d rather they just charge a bit more for the workstation license and keep rendernodes free.
What is the problem with software development these days? Developers used to make a fine living out of writing good software and selling updates; for some reason this seems not to work anymore – but why?
I would argue that their logic is flawed, actually. Incremental updates and changes might be nice for the developers, but they are painful for the users (downloads, install, test, potential for incompatibilities…).
If the “Box” version (which they also offer) would include updates (e.g. at 50% discount of the full price), that would be just fine for me.
Forcing users into this model is a bad mistake IMO. Giving them options is great.
As long as it’s not a subscription, we’ll survive this. 🙂
Software has grown much more complicated since the “good old days” Users demand an enormous number of features in a renderer now. Someone has to write those features. Development costs money.
It will have a subs price so you can maintain yourself up to date, and probably it will have also an update price for the following next release.
I say that having read all the thread about this in the Corona forum, but I’m sure they’ll confirm this and explain everything soon.
Cheers.
render rental at + $100 than Houdini Indie per year…pricing seems to be a bit off in my opinion.
I haven’t tried, but for this price I’ll take a look at the MoskitoRender. It’s cheaper and more reasonable price-wise.
“200$ Houdini” costs me 50.000$ till i learn how to use it and implement in the studio pipeline – and i still don’t get Corona Renderer with it. Aside this, i am not qualifying for obtaining Houdini Indi :(. I don’t think your argument would work as a general rule, there are too many variables in the real production environments. 300 eur is really nothing for a boxed version of a nice renderer.
Well, they changed some things based on feedback from the users. Damn … it’s so strange when something like this happens. Great job done by this guys, who are willing to listen.
“QUICK RECAP
Previous article about Prices & Release date of 3dsmax version.
SaaS
Unlimited access to all major, monthly, and daily experimental builds.
Costs 24.99€/month (19.99 for first year with our initial promo discount)
1 floating workstation license (usable also as render node) + 3 floating render nodes
Paid monthly, with voluntary option to pre-pay 1 year
Cancel at any time without any charge
NEW: we added SaaS versions with 5 render nodes instead of 3 (29.99€/month), and 10 render nodes instead of 3 (45.99€/month)
Box
Forever access the version 1.0
1 fixed seat workstation license (usable also as render node) + 3 fixed render nodes
Access to all bug fixes for major version 1.0.
Eligible for future paid upgrades to versions 2.0, 3.0, …
We have scrapped the 90 days of free subscription – no longer applicable
Subscription
Costs 99€/year
Gives permanent access to future major versions (2.0, 3.0, …), monthly builds and daily experimental builds released while the subscription is active
Must be purchased when buying the box license.
Valid for 12 months, can be renewed”
https://corona-renderer.com/blog/discussion-about-prices-licence-politics-ii/
I like how that there would be none of these “what, they want money now??” comments if they hadn’t made it a free betatest from the beginning.
@mdko
Regardless, it’s reasonable to expect people will care more about the pricing of a product they’ve already invested time in.