E-ON updates Plant Factory and Vue plus new rental only licensing
E-ON Software has updated VUE and PlantFactory with several new features. For both tools, materials are now compatible with PBR workflows including a tool to convert materials from a specular to a metal/roughness workflow and Substance is now supported with a selection of materials included. The UV mapping algorithm for vegetation has been improved the it is now possible to export procedural materials baked to UV and UDIM maps.
In VUE, it’s not possible to convert any mesh into a standalone volumetric cloud and 3D clouds and volumetric cloud layers can be exported using OpenVDB.
The UI has also been overhauled and homogenised and gamma management has been improved to meet linear workflows.
In addition to the product announcements, E-ON has updated its branding and more significantly changed its licensing to rental only. Three packages are now available to rent either monthly or annually.
The lowest price offering at $19.95 a month or $199 a year is called the Creator Solution and includes the cut-down VUE Creator and PlantFactory Creator tools
At $75 a month or $750 a year, the Professional Solution includes full versions of VUE and PlantFactory.
Finally, for $99 a month or $990 a year for nodelocked licenses, and $149 a month or $1495 a year for floating, the Enterprise Solution also includes VUE, and PlantFactory but adds 25 render nodes for network rendering plus access to a library of new vegetation species that will be continually developed.
30 days trials are available but the PLE editions appear to have been removed. Find out more on E-ON’s blog.
Another one on the subscription bandwagon without a perpetual option. 🙁
Yup 🙁 its sad thing because it looks like everything is going rental only 🙁
Well there is blender which is free. And Houdini which has perpetual option and which is getting more terramodelling features. world composer, terragen and world creator (world creator is probably best alternative for vue at the moment with terragen) – i hope they won’t change their licensing policy to rental only – if they do then i will look blender and hope that some talented developer will make/add terrain editor for blender. Tree editors there is already good ones – the grove, speedtree and many others. Maybe there is still hope – i mean there is already affinity photo and designer + publisher (which are great – awesome) and DaVinci Resolve. I hope C4D and HoudiniFX won’t make same mistake and go rental only path 🙁 That would be sad and it would mean that i would go for blender and support their development but maybe it would be good thing after all – their new eevee renderer is pretty nice especially for prototyping and fast motion graphics work – blender will need motion graphics and vfx tools (like houdini and c4d).
Not everything, not every developer is following the absurd lie that if you don´t pay every month they cannot continue developing… how did they reach today´s status then?
It´s absurd, but there are fair players in the field, and in the medium term they will win, I´m sure, you have from Blender to Houdini, or C4D, or other solutions both free or open source or paid.
Houdini Indie is a rental, but I just signed on for two years of that rental for $400…days after Autodesk increased my subscription rate to $700 for ONE year..as a way to try to force me into rental.
So it KINDA worked…I am renting now. Houdini Indie…and I’m learning how to do landscape stuff so I’m done with Vue….and saving hundreds per year.
hahaha! we were already paying 700€ for max subs before the rental only, I cannot imagine what would be the price in the future, their path is clear, our path should be clear to them too, so they change their path if they want customers other than Warner Brothers or Sony Animation…
Congrats on Houdini Indie! And welcome to the other side of the fence, were grass is greener even when they say it´s not 🙂
Cheers!