> Conclusion: As Jonas said at $500 mark MoI becomes a "main" package,

I'm not so sure about this conclusion.

Like Jonas mentioned, frequently a utility plug-in that you might purchase to extend another program (like a Render engine for Rhino, a CAM plugin for something else, etc..) easily run $500 or more. A plugin is certainly not a "main" package, and if you view MoI in this light it makes it pretty easy to consider it in the same category, if it does useful things to you and particularly if it has functions that you can't get anywhere else!


> Now let focus on the lowest price: Shark LT $475

Let us instead focus on this: Shark FX MSRP: $1795.00

I certainly agree that at that actually full version price nearing $2000, that makes it a "main" package. Although actually, does that version even do CAM built in?


Anyway it is sort of the essence of MoI to focus on creating geometry very quickly and fluidly. This is going to remain a primary goal for MoI throughout its life, and I will have a tendency to shy away from just adding in tons of things that actually ruin this essential function by increasing the complexity by too much.

So I do not really expect for MoI to become a full replacement for a parametric solid modeling program, really ever. Those programs have different goals that do not totally align with MoI's goals.

Of course I will be adding things in to MoI over time as well, and as this continues it will become a more complete program for various tasks, certainly.

- Michael

Hi Tony,

> So the intended upgrade price is always going to be
> the difference between the versions?

Yup, that's the idea, at least for the next several versions. At a certain point (probably at $495) the price of a full new license for the new version will not go up any more after that. I guess at that time I will have to figure out what to do about an upgrade price, since there won't be this kind of natural "difference between versions" price.


> At $500.00 I probably would not have bought though. After
> playing with the demo and at $195.00, no problem.

I guess if I had a $195 "lite" version in addition to a $500 full version this would probably still have worked for you.


> This might be a problem for me (non-pro) in the future if the
> upgrade price goes too high.

I pretty much expect for it to be $100 for an upgrade (targeting roughly once a year releases) for some time to come anyway.


> So I was wondering, can you change the lite version every
> so often to be 2 or 3 versions back rather than just remain
> at version 1?

Yeah I think that is a good idea. Maybe it would be better for me to focus more on v2 being the actual lite version once v4 is out, and probably not really having one until we get to v4.

- Michael

Hi Steve,

> In its current state?

Yes, that was the idea - none of those bugs that you are referring to were critical data-loss or crash type bugs...

But it may be better for me to focus on v2 as the target for that lite version in the future though, in addition to fixes other stuff like the much faster mesh output would work really well for someone who was focused on data conversion.


> to make a bug report, to then be told it is fixed in V2 and a
> need to upgrade to get a fix could not be taken well.

Well, v2 is certainly not perfect neither, no version will be. So this same kind of a thing could happen no matter which version I pick to fix for the "lite" version.

The only way around that would be to have the "lite" version be a kind of stripped down subset of the current actively developed version, rather than a frozen previous version.

However, producing multiple versions from a single active codebase adds some complexity and more work to my overall development process, so I don't really want to do that route.

- Michael

Hi Burr, I'm really glad you took a gamble on MoI and have turned out to like it so much!!! :)

- Michael

>>I pretty much expect for it to be $100 for an upgrade (targeting roughly once a year releases) for some time to come anyway

Thanks for your reply Michael, this is good news for me and I can budget for upgrades. Wouldn't want to be without MoI now :-)

Hello Michael,

>>Let us instead focus on this: Shark FX MSRP: $1795.00

I certainly agree that at that actually full version price nearing $2000, that makes it a "main" package. Although actually, does that version even do CAM built in?<<

I was wondering if I should take your statement seriously. A cad system with constraints / animation / rendering, is to you, lacking due to no in-built CAM.


>>none of those bugs that you are referring to were critical data-loss or crash type bugs...<<

We started to have this discussion before, but rather than continue you closed that thread. I am just happy that vendors such as who produce programs as Rhino do not have the same attitude as "if it dont crash then it can wait for a paid for update" OR "if you dont find a bug in the beta then the final release is final with no bug fixes until the next version"

Anyway, your attitude alone as made me remove MoI.

Hi Steve, to do what you want there would mean releasing MoI earlier than I did and have it full of bugs in its initial release.

Software that is done in that way requires numerous service releases like you seem to want.

I don't wish to operate in that manner, and I have no plans to do so - if that is unacceptable to you, then yes you should not use MoI.

What a completely ridiculous idea it is to be upset at having a completely stable version though.

- Michael

Show me a bug free app or OS.
You're dreaming Steve, no offense.

Oh! btw can I have your copy of MoI ? :)

--------
~Danny~

I am really confused by the last comment from Manz....
Michael's attitude is actually one of the best things about MOI, I have not seen many developers that are as responsive to user comments, about fixing bugs, adding features etc...
In my opinion, Michael is top notch for this.

As for the rest of the thread, here is my 2 cents:

The price of moi is incredibly low. As others have already mentioned, even plugins for certain apps, such as ext render engines, can cost up to 1000$ easily.
I have bought several apps for much more, and that have delivered a lot less....
As moi grows, I would also be willing to pay for upgrades, and I find Michael's suggestions of charging only the difference to the new price, as an upgrade price, very fair.

- MOI produces the best ngon meshes I have seen so far, and it play very well with RHINO (except for a lack of polygon mesh import). Even if you only need a mesher for 3dm or IGES, the price is a steal, really. I get a lot of 3dm models from clients (I deal with visuals for complex architectural projects). Moi has been a huge boost to get clean meshes out to our render apps.

-Beyond that, moi has by far the best workflow of any linear app out there in my opinion, for hard edge modeling.
Because I deal with visuals for Competitions / project at the conceptual stage, it normally does not make sense to invest too much time setting up a model with a deep construction history. It works much better to have a linear modeling approach in most cases (especially since we only model the smaller projects in-house; for more complex projects, we normally receive 3d models from our clients.)
Moi is incredibly fluid to work with.
And the tools just make sense.


All I need now are layers (...edited....), and I would be switching almost completely to moi for modeling!

Keep up the good work Michael.

I suppose we can't please everyone.

I don't excpect to have a lifetime free update from MoI. Everything has a cost, an MoI gives a lot for what I've payed for.

- Instant feedback for every little bugs. I'm not affraid to use it in production, I know whatever the problem I can have, it will be fixed most of the time in the
day, and if not I'll reveice 10 workarounds from Michael or others Moiers.

- For someone who never userd nurbs, bying MoI is like having a private teacher, called Michael, every day of the week ... priceless !

So maybe the develepement is quite different from others companies, but I'm glad to give a little of my money in this project, and I know where
my money is going.

Now I do agree with Manz, maybe, depending of the time Michael can put in, if the V1 is sold as a lite version, it would be wise to fix all the little bugs discovered
during the V2 beta (library updates, etc) without any feature update ofcourse. Actually V1 (and the V1 demo) is no more really revelant from what Moi is.

In the other hand, I've the feeling that having access to V2beta is part from some licence bying decission too.

OMG just reading this thread - I can't believe people are winging that MOI is or will be too expensive! MOI is the best value app out there for me and the high level of support is worth $100 a year anyway! If you think moi is expensive then look at the major architectural cad packages - autocad is just outragous in terms of bang for buck and they make you subscribe! How do people expect michael to make a living - no michael = no moi. I bought moi as a hobby app but seriously considering using it for work, even still I would/will be buying it for $100 each year till it levels out at the suggested $495 by which time im sure if will be a killer app. Keep up the good work michael.

""""He removed it.

Even REMOVED it easier and faster than any other app!! :)

Keep up the good work Michael.

Hi Michael,

When you where working for rhino3d,
how many programmers worked on
the program?

Yust curious,

Keep up the good work.

Hi Paolo,

> When you where working for rhino3d, how many programmers
> worked on the program?

For the initial 2 years or so I worked on it all by myself while several other programmers worked on a project called "AccuModel" which was an AutoCAD plug-in that used that same NURBS geometry library (called AGLib).

After something like 2 years or so of the initial work on it, it was looking like it was going to turn out a lot better than AccuModel, so everyone agreed to cancel AccuModel and shift everyone over to work on Rhino instead. As that ramped up I guess something like 7 or 8 people would work on various aspects of it. It took quite a while to finish even after that shift of resources, something like another 2 or 3 years after that.

So the final result was certainly a group effort, but it was sort of "my baby" as the phrase goes - there is no doubt it would never have existed at all if hadn't put a really intense effort to create it initially and get it going.


When I started MoI I had a lot more experience with software design than when I started Rhino, so it has been easier for me to do a larger extent of work on my own for it.

A bit of trivia: Early versions of Rhino were actually called Sculptura 2.0 , after an earlier modeling program that I had started while at college. But I had basically thrown away everything and started completely from scratch so after a while I decided to give it a brand new name rather than continuing it as Sculptura.

- Michael

Thanks for the little story,

I hope some guy's in this thread cool down
a bit and have more respect for the effort
you put in this project

I have full respect for Michael and his efforts.
And probably one of his best salesmen on the web.
But there is another side of the real world that should not be forgotten.

http://www.finfacts.ie/biz10/globalworldincomepercapita.htm

Brian

Wow. Australia's not even there! Looks like they dont matter.

TRUE! (The story of my life!---sob., sob)
(It's on that pdf thread though!)

Brian

ps I wonder how many of the thousands of USA 3D/computer programming workers laid off recently can now afford the products they participated in producing?

It is a changing world?