David Calderon

GCharb
Bah, Blender is mostly hype to drive donations, a stack of half-baked tools that rarely get finished to a proper level, as for Houdini, I feel for you, but Indie at 200 USD per year on a 2-year subscription is a bargain, especially compared to the 7K full price, maybe you would have better chances if you asked if a user would be willing to convert the files for you!

Yeah, that's what I'm finding out too, it's a good start point but as I learn I'm starting to find out Blender wants to do a lot of things but doesn't really excel at most of them, some of which are important for my project, so that's when I started looking for alternatives and Houdini seems like a very interesting one for a big part of what I'm aiminig to do.

I might learn Houdini with Apprentice though and save the money for it while I learn but I'm not really happy to pay it like that because I don't know if in one year I'll have the 269 dollar at once again, not everyone is in the same financial situation and having the amount of money for a full year can be a difficult task sometimes or in a bad timing that ends up delaying the renewal for a long time period depending on the situation. Anyways thanks for the hints and understanding

mandrake0

oonabe
sorry, but not everyone has the annual amount of money to pay at once even when it's more convenient in the long term, and also to see after one year that you need to have that same bigger amount of money ready if you want to renew your subscription, that's inconvenient for many users.

if I remember correctly there was a monthly subscription price for indie not long ago and I actually came here with the idea of subscribing to it just to find out there is no option to do that anymore, thanks sidefx, you just lost a customer here, bye

If you are a houdini artist you will earn the money in no time. As Andr has said the apprentice version is ideal to learn and build your CG skills.
You always can use blender!

That's the thing, I'm not a Houdini artist, I work in a completely different branch and Houdini is rather for a personal project that I might monetize or not depending on the results.

Learning it at this point makes no real sense for me if I won't be able to pay it later once I want to release my works without the limitations of the apprentice version, and actually I'm already using Blender but obviously I'm not really happy with some of its features, if it were that simple as use Blender instead no one would be paying for Houdini or Maya

Andr

oonabe
sorry, but not everyone has the annual amount of money to pay at once even when it's more convenient in the long term, and also to see after one year that you need to have that same bigger amount of money ready if you want to renew your subscription, that's inconvenient for many users.

if I remember correctly there was a monthly subscription price for indie not long ago and I actually came here with the idea of subscribing to it just to find out there is no option to do that anymore, thanks sidefx, you just lost a customer here, bye

There is no need to be so drastic, when on the other side you have a company that usually listen and improve from users feedback more than any other.
Just contact SideFX Sales [www.sidefx.com] explaining your issues with the current pricing model for the Indie version.

In the meantime you can already use the apprentice version of Houdini to learn and study, which has very few limitations.

It's not about being drastic as much as about capability, not everyone has the amount of money for a full year to pay at once and then again pay the full amount a year later not knowing which financial situation you'll be when the year is over, I personally can't see why is it a problem to offer a monthly subscription model when most companies are offering it these days, but I guess they have their reasons and for me is unfortunately not an option to pay yearly.

I don't think contacting the support can help me any furhter here, I've seen complaints about this for years now and they haven't done it so I won't be wasting my time, I'll check the website every now and then and see if that option comes and in the meantime use other software even when I would really like to use this one because it seems to suit my needs better than the rest of the software I can afford. The thing is, there is no point for me to even start learning with the apprentice version if I cannot upgrade later due to a lack of flexibility in the subscription options.

Anyways thanks for the hints