Software > 3DS Max > Plugin News
GuruWare discontinues support for Ivy Generator
Oct 16, 2017 by CGPress Staff
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Nearly ten years to the day that we first reported the release of Ivy by GuruWare, it would appear that this venerable 3DS Max plugin is to be discontinued. A message on GuruWare’s homepage cites a donation of 0.01 Euros and general lack of appreciation as the main reason to stop development and remove existing builds of the tool. According to GuruWare the plugin was downloaded over 35,000 times, yet the income from donations has not even covered the cost to run the web domain. More information can be found on the GuruWare website.
I can atest that I donated once to the developer. I never got any response from him to a couple of support requests I had so it seems odd to hear that.
That’s a shame – the first I’ve heard from the developer, so maybe would have been an idea to remind people before deciding to quit entirely.
I’m really not sure why they didn’t just make it a fully commercial plugin.
Sorry to hear that. I never seen the donate link or I don’t remember it. Or you can make the plugin commercial.
Removing it is not solution. It’s a great plugin. Make it commercial plugin. I’ll buy it.
I get it, some people were trolling by donating .01 EUR and he finally reached the tipping point. It seems a bit disingenuous to say that trolling and general lack of donations weren’t the cause and then go on in the next paragraphs to write that the total sum of all donations didn’t cover the domain costs and you don’t need the money anyway.
Give the guy a break. He’s made a huge contribution to the 3ds max, and has every right to point out how poorly his product was funded.
Look, expecting anything positive from internet keygen kiddies is just setting yourself up for heartbreak and woe. Huge? I guess our workflow and clients are not as ivy dependent as yours.
He programmed the current OBJ-importer that we have in 3ds Max. A lot of people use that on a daily basis.
Yup, but in context we’re only being snarky about stuff that was pulled off the internet in a fit of pique. Autodesk bought the OBJ importer, so it is only subject to the tender mercies of Autodesk.
Please correct the article.
He didn’t say it is because “a lack of appreciation”.
He didn’t want money, either.
Heck, English is not my native language. But, I can clearly understand what he is saying.
This is the 3rd case which I saw a dev is stoppoing their work because of this kinds of immature internet trolls at first hand. It is really sad.
I think appreciation is about right. There are many ways to appreciate something of course, but two obvious ones are financially, with a donation button in this case, or with feedback and kind words. Both these things can be used to show the opposite, disdain, using negative comments and insulting donations.
I agree that the donation was the trigger in this case, but it’s unlikely that one troll would have shut down the plugin unless there was already a feeling of it not being worth it. He mentioned the poor donations a number of times, I don’t think because he wanted to make money, if he wanted to do that he’d have sold the plugin (and people would have bought it) but because it shows a disrespect for the hard work and service provided over many years..
I can understand him completely.
He’s not been doing this for years to get rich, but it would have been nice to get a little appreciation every now and then for the work he’s been doing for the community.
What does he get instead? People taking the piss with a 1 cent donation.
When you look at your sites statistics and see how many downloads you have each month, and how many people even bother saying “Thanks” in that time, it really does make you wonder why you bother.
Sometimes it really is just one straw that breaks the camels back.
Just put it on gumroad or some website similar = no hosting costs.
Make it 10 bucks. If your plugin isn’t even 10 bucks worth, then make it 10 bucks worth first. Then put up a page on patreon for the further development of the plugin, if you receive funds for development, develop, if not, then don’t. If you are pirated then develop frequently with versions.
And call it a day.
No need to get emotional. The market is not a person. It doesn’t care if someone has been mean to you. If you remove it from the market and there is demand, some other plugin will take its place in time.
I haven’t used the ivy generator, but I believe there is a demand for it. So just do it. Earn money. Be solid.
“If your plugin isn’t even 10 bucks worth, then make it 10 bucks worth first.”
The problem you obviously have is not understanding 2 basic things here.
1) this piece of software is objectively worth way more then $10 (or at least was when it got released)
2) the earning was/is not a priority or goal in this case.
You’re giving business advice to someone who has enough money to decide that he can share some of his work for free. Personally I perceive giving anything for free demoralizing, but in general it is emotionally driven act of generosity. So naturally other emotions can trigger opposite action.
He simply realized that people don’t deserve it 🙂 Looking even at some of the comments here it’s hard to disagree.
Someone is going to take his place? Oh, yeah I can hear the crowd just waiting to write another ivy generator and give it away 😉
Exactly.
Yeah, 1+ for Gumroad. Take for example 20$ per license and 7,5x (150$) for a studio site license.
Use Gumroad additionally for hosting your free stuff. No hosting costs & better marketing options.
Thanks!
That’s really sad and disrespectful. He provided a valuable asset that was used for years in the 3DS Max community. Everybody wants something for free.
Lol… who was the idiot who did that (donated the 0,01EUR)…? Why do people do this stuff? Do they get a thrill out of doing that…? You know like a psychopath…?
Kind of an emo move to be honest. You have to develop a thicker skin than that if you’re to participate on the internet at all.
I understand him fully, it’s not easy to keep motivation up when developing tools that is released for free.
And especially over that long time as he has done.
I too develop both open source and free 3dsmax tools.
And I often have to reflect on what I do, and dig deep to find motivation to continue on developing. But that being said – when you develop something for free it’s good to have zero expectations of getting something back for it, it is a tool you develop and choose to give away for free. So I too agree with the others mentioning that he should make it commercial instead of discontinuing, or even better – make it open source, so that others can help with development and ideas.
A sorry state of affairs. This says way more about the individual who made such a childish gesture than it does about Ivy or its developer. I would encourage the dev to let things settle, then look at the options. Gumroad does sound a way forward?
Sigh.. I think you guys still don’t get what is the problem.
He never expected the money. Gumload would not help.
I also have made some free tools and never expected any money or some nice email. But, if someone send me an insulting email, I’m sure I’ll rethink about any sharing.
It is about the respect. Not money.
I follow what you’re saying but the motivation to use Gumroad doesn’t need to be about making piles of money. A lot of people see a donation button and can’t be bothered to get their wallet out to pay a cent, even if they respect the developer and the tool. This would concentrate the mind of those people while making it harder for the few parasites out there who given the opportunity like to behave like parasites.
edit – making it harder for the few idiots out there.. (I shouldn’t post until I’ve finished my first coffee of the day)
So your idea is make everyone suffer because your ego can’t handle 0.05€ ? If you don’t give a shit about the money, how do you know it wasn’t a mistake ? Or even if it wasn’t a mistake, how do you know the background of someone who paid that ? Maybe they are in a 3rd world country, poor, using crack software, but this, they could afford ?? No need for him to have a hissy fit about his ‘respect’. He is not the mafia, or something.
I don’t think the community should be blamed for this guy taking down his tool. His rant for not making money i believe is his own fault. He shouldn’t have given the tool away for free if he was going to turn around and complain about someone paying him 1 cent for it. He opened that door himself. I think he should have just changed the download to require a minimum payment for just sell the darn thing for 5 bucks as a micro transaction.
He has to keep in mind he is sharing a tool with a world that thrives on free stuff. He should have charged for the tool if he was going to be to bitter about the situation from the start.
I agree with you on all points.
Please… he didn’t complain about not making money.
I know he didn’t want/expect money at first hand because I have talked with him before.
I need to borrow this comment from SD3D at cgtalk since my English is not that good.
“It might not be worth the time and effort for him to sell it. Again, it doesn’t have to be about the monetry value. Not so much a rant as an illustration of disapointment in the “Community”. He programs because he enjoys doing it and isn’t primarily focused on the money aspect ,but when people insinuate that your work is shit through certain actions and inactions, just maybe he asks the question “Why the fuck do I bother!?”
As far as i can read, it was never his plan to make money with it. He never made an indication in all his texts it is about earning money.
Therefore is the disscussion about “why he did not throw it on the Gumroad Junk-yard” obsolete. It was not his plan. Simple.
From what i see he is dissapointed because he did not get respect/response he hoped for. Or he thought it was normal to get.
But it is not his fault, the world and the people have changed in last years, everything got more “rough”… 🙁
He may take is a disrespect, however 1 cent is better than nothing. Considering he said he had over 35,000 downloads and i’m guessing around 30,000 didn’t give him anything.
I think he is blowing this way out of proportion because of his own doing.
Do you really think that 5000 people clicked on the donate button? I would bet everything I have that it is more like 50 people.
And I really don’t understand why people are coming down on the guy.
There’s something very wrong with the world when the people doing stuff for free get criticised for moaning about a lack of respect for what they are doing…
You make an assumption that only 50 people paid. You are WRONG.
I have many plugins and scripts, the ones I use every single day are priced at $10. I didn’t need to pay the guy over and over, but I have, around 3 times.
Ivy Generator, I paid $20, and I used it once.
I know Architectural illustrators who paid $50 for it.
Others have done the same ($50).
Who gives a damn about respect, if you command/demand it, you must have a low opinion of yourself.
How would YOU know that 50 people paid?
You don’t deserve his generosity.
Thanks for letting me know I’m wrong, you obviously know a lot more about this than I do.
It’s also nice of you to let me know that thinking people who do things for others without wanting payment for it obviously have a low opinion of themselves.
What motivation would someone even have of donating 1 cent if the donation is optional? It’s not insulting, it just makes no sense.
I do agree with you! Seems like a wasted effort.
How many of you in here have at some point in your career benefited from the generosity of others? Some of the comments here add up to “cry me a river”, which makes it even less appealing to want to help the community.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for those who spend some of their time to helping others to get frustrated when instead of getting some pats in the back get destructive feedback.
Oh wow…I´ve been using this tool basically from day one of my CGI career (well, maybe day 37) and I absolutely couldn´t have finished a couple of projects without it.
I´m also guilty of the same kind of weird mindset that doesn´t get the donation thing…I don´t get why I should donate, if it isn´t required, even though I´d gladly pay something like 5 or even 10 bucks for it, if it was mandatory.
I don´t know of any plugin that could do what I needed it for in the past (growing veins etc.), that wasn´t completely over the top and overpriced for that specific task…(GrowFX for example).
There should be an activation step needed for the tool if it was to be purely about the appreciation: You could maybe use it once and then you´d have to activate it by saying some nice words about how you like it…;)
But yeah. Giving things away for free seems to really rarely lead to much appreciation, sad as it may be.
Well, I went on his website thinking I would drop a nice word even though I only used his plugin as a recreation. Never had an actual project requiring this FX. But I loved the plugin, very effective and fun to use!
The fact is that I couldn’t find any way to leave a comment… How can you complain about bad comments if the button is so hard to find??
Very sad indeed.
Remarkable how many people don’t know what ‘gratitude’ is. If you use something that was given to you for free, the easiest thing is to say ‘thank you’ if you find it useful. Especially if you do not have to do it but are free to test and work with the tool first. In the same time you issue a 1 cent donation, you could easily have made a 5 $/Euro donation.
The large availability of free stuff for 3ds Max is one of it’s strengths but most users have no idea how little positive feedback is given, even if it costs you nothing but an email or a +1 click on scriptspot. Pretty sad actually.
Some nice words (and maybe a little donation here and there) go a very long way in motivating a coder of free tools…
All this talk about making it a commercial product. Saying I would have bought it. Yeah right… It would have ended up being bought by a few yes but also shared by thousands and that’s the biggest problem for these lone developers, they put in all the effort, yet very few people care. Long as they can find someone willing to share it, so they can get it for nothing, then they will and the end result would have been the same.
Donated myself, as I imagine over the years, others have. but 0.01 Euros is a joke and I totally understand their reason for giving up and moving on. If you don’t then you are probably one of those “poor people” who use their lack of finances, to grab anything and everything for nothing. I myself wish them luck in whatever they decide to do now
Perhaps what you say about the sharing culture is true, I don’t know. But from my own perspective, if I find a tool that I think will be useful, and if the numbers stack up, then its highly likely I will buy it. Sharing commercial tools isn’t on my radar, just as I wouldn’t ‘share’ a new power tool with my local hardware store. The situation with Ivy seems like the digital equivalent of an ‘honesty box’ where folk are free to show their gratitude by leaving some spare cash in a box. Clearly the dev took exception to finding someone left 1c in there. But really, I’m sure anyone who operates a physical honesty box would come across the same kind of pathetic expression of gratitude at some point. Some people will always take advantage or try to take the mickey, its a sad fact. I guess if this is the model of distribution you choose then it would be good to always keep that at the back of your mind, accept it and then maybe it would be water off a ducks back rather than become a provocation.
The guy is a genius but a poor businessman, if you expect to survive on donations than you are in the wrong field my friend. My advice to you, make that v1.0 update, and charge $10 for it and stop whining.
He was never a “businessman”.
Therefore, he doesn’t need your “advice”.
If it was always about respect and he wanted to us to show our gratitude, how do we do that ? There’s no email address, no contact form, nothing !! This guy has a screw loose.
Maybe you should hit the Paypal button, since these are always to connect with an email address? And be nice, that is what it was all about…
“This guy has a screw loose.”
Yes, and that is exactly the type of comment that will engage him and make him return to his contributions to the community.
BTW if you want Ivy you can always download Blender and generate it there (in the case you don´t have this for max anymore) and export it to your max scene.
The Ivy generator in Blender is under support and development, it´s an included addon.
Cheers.