Dear D5 team, I have just recieved this announcement:
D5 Render 2.0 is expected to be launched by the end of September, and we will cease the sale of the perpetual Pro license at that time. D5 Pro will be available through monthly or annual subscriptions.
*Note: D5 users with lifetime Pro licenses will not be affected by any price changes - they can upgrade for free and access all the Pro features.
As far as I understand, as a Pro user /owner of the PERPETUAL LICENSE & LIFETIME FREE UPGRADES/ I can upgrade to D5 2.0 Pro for free? and also then after to D5 3.0 and so on?.. and I hope that I will not be charged annually or monthly…or?
Today’s email from D5 team. See bolded sentence.
Announcement
Q: Is it true that we can no longer purchase the lifetime plan of D5 Render?
A: Yes.
D5 Render 2.0 is expected to be launched by the end of September, and we will cease the sale of the perpetual Pro license at that time. D5 Pro will be available through monthly or annual subscriptions.
*Note: D5 users with lifetime Pro licenses will not be affected by any price changes - they can upgrade for free and access all the Pro features.
Hi, I do understand that I can upgrade for free to D5 2.0…but the email doesn’t include the info what will be next…I expect that I will have to pay after I will purchase D 2.0…monthly or annual…but Im going to wait what the official D5 team will tell us…now Im bit upset…hope tomorrow I will be just mistaken…
Agree, I had the chance to work with D5 from beginning and I really love the way they do things…also had chance to “talk” to some D5 team members personally and they are nice people…maybe that’s the reason why Im bit confused now /upset/…seems like Im going to have my whole life “to be monthly” /house, car, office, taxes, CAD, Revit, Sketchup, Adobe…/…I don’t like it this way…
Not sure. What I understood about the perpetual license is just that you will receive upgrades for your specific version for free… You will possibly be able to upgrade and use the 2.0 version for free for being an early support, but I wouldn’t count on having a lifetime of new versions for free, that would be a very hard way to make some money.
I was planning to buy the 2.0 version, that’s why I held till now. But a rental… Hell no. I am out. Autodesk users are hostages for this license model and they pay huge amounts every year for no significant upgrade in most softwares. This is nonsense and I will advocate against this abusive model.
D5 team made a very clear definition of “Lifetime” in the description. I personally bought the pro license based on this. Otherwise I would’ve wait until it’s became competitive with my current render engine “Corona” in every aspect. I don’t think D5 team will abandon their early supporter by manipulating the meaning. Maybe they’ll stop providing lifetime upgrades for new licenses onwards.
I don’t want to be pessimistic & want to convince myself what is apparent from their early clarification. This is not something we are asking, this is about what they promised.
But to support future developments, they can ask for donation from early pro users something like Blender and implement their new subscription model to new customer. And many of the user will do so if it helps us making money.
I agree with cgstaff, if 5d promised a lifetime license, this license should be forever.
At the early stage, a couple of thousand people bought the license, I suppose this is not so much if you look globally.
But it was these people who were interested in 5d from the very beginning, they took part in competitions, filled the gallery with beautiful works, thereby testing and advertising this product.
It seems fair to me to give such people a lifetime license, as they also contributed to the development of 5d rendering and will continue to do so in the future.
And I hope there will be no surcharges for new versions 5d 3.0, … 4.0 … and beyond.
It is interesting that no representative of D5 has commented on this thread. So now I am wondering what is going on. They could very quickly ease minds on this matter.
Honestly I bought because of the screenshot that cg shared above. And have invested a lot of time learning D5 and buying models to use strictly in D5 from d5lib.com
I am so sorry, I haven’t seem that page before, if I had, I would probably had buy D5 already just as you did. Yes, it is a very clear promise of lifetime upgrades. I was using D5 since their site was just a front page with a mandarim texts, and haven’t really explored the site after that, kept updated about news from social pages.
But I wouldn’t be surprised by a change of heart. After all the very same page says “creators don’t rented their tools”.
I could just buy D5 now and expect for the same upgrades, but I am comitted to not supporting a “hostage/rental” model company. Pretty sure there will be other real time renders on the horizon with time.
