Upgrading everything
Jul. 16th, 2010 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marydellIt seems like not all that long ago that I got my computer kitted out with the latest versions of all of the graphics apps I used for my graphic design hustle and settled down to learn two particularly complex new (to me) apps--Zbrush and Adobe Illustrator. Our family-building was, at that time, going rather badly and throwing myself into artistic pursuits is how I kept from falling apart. So, no sooner had I started gingerly going through some AI tutorials than I suddenly became a mom. I've barely opened an application since. And they've all released updates. I have a vast, unfinished 3d project that was almost ready to be submitted for sale; now most of what I've made is obsolete and will have to be remade using new technologies--or scrapped. (The graphic design is sound, but the engineering changes over time--for example, the level of detail people want in their models goes up as processor power goes up)
My current roster of apps is: Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Vue D'Esprit 6, Bryce 6, Poser 7, DAZ Studio, Zbrush 3.1, Cinema 4D XL Studio 9.5, Corel Painter 9.5, Carrara 8. I get upgrades to Bryce, Carrara, and DAZ Studio more or less free, because I broker with DAZ, the company that sells all of those (which is why I even have Carrara, because I don't generally care for it, although I'm trying). I'll get the next upgrade to Zbrush for free, because the company that makes it, Pixologic, is AWESOME and often gives away upgrades.
As for the other ones, I'm 1 version behind on Poser and don't mind staying that way for now...I only use it for QA'ing my models, doing my actual rendering in other stuff. I'm 2 versions behind on Vue D'Esprit, and I don't desperately need the upgrade's features, but if I don't upgrade soon I'll fall off the "upgrade pricing" cliff--if your version is too many versions back, they won't discount you. Cinema 4D used to be "the affordable one" of the high-end modeling packages (particularly affordable if you got comped in exchange for writing a bunch of articles for them, which is how I got mine). Nowadays, though, the upgrade cost is about the same as what the entire app cost back when I started using it. So although it has served me pretty well, I'm pitching it, and switching to the very-affordable (in the realm of modeling apps) Shade 10 Standard as soon as my next paycheck arrives.
Corel Painter is up to version 11 now, but Corel is unusually nice about letting you upgrade from really old versions, so I think I can wait for version 12 to upgrade. Photoshop and Illustrator, while crazily expensive to buy initially, have decent upgrade pricing. They're on version CS5 now and I'll need to buy upgrades for both before they go to CS6, even though the feature set isn't that different from what I have now, or I could lose my upgrade-path pricing. Photoshop does have some kind of new brush/painting system, which will be nice, but it still won't rival Corel Painter, from what I've read, so...meh.
Anyway, when I add up the cost of buying Shade and upgrading Vue, Photoshop, and Illustrator, I start to get in the range of 1000 bucks. Eep. So I'll have to keep a sharp eye on release dates etc, because I can't really justify invest that kind of money up-front into a graphics business that's currently hibernating. If I buy Shade to start with, then I can complete some new models using that and the older apps. Then I can sell the models to (barely) fund the rest of the upgrades, hopefully before they do another version update and take away the upgrade discount. Anyway, I think that's a plan. We'll see how real life intersects with it.
My current roster of apps is: Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Vue D'Esprit 6, Bryce 6, Poser 7, DAZ Studio, Zbrush 3.1, Cinema 4D XL Studio 9.5, Corel Painter 9.5, Carrara 8. I get upgrades to Bryce, Carrara, and DAZ Studio more or less free, because I broker with DAZ, the company that sells all of those (which is why I even have Carrara, because I don't generally care for it, although I'm trying). I'll get the next upgrade to Zbrush for free, because the company that makes it, Pixologic, is AWESOME and often gives away upgrades.
As for the other ones, I'm 1 version behind on Poser and don't mind staying that way for now...I only use it for QA'ing my models, doing my actual rendering in other stuff. I'm 2 versions behind on Vue D'Esprit, and I don't desperately need the upgrade's features, but if I don't upgrade soon I'll fall off the "upgrade pricing" cliff--if your version is too many versions back, they won't discount you. Cinema 4D used to be "the affordable one" of the high-end modeling packages (particularly affordable if you got comped in exchange for writing a bunch of articles for them, which is how I got mine). Nowadays, though, the upgrade cost is about the same as what the entire app cost back when I started using it. So although it has served me pretty well, I'm pitching it, and switching to the very-affordable (in the realm of modeling apps) Shade 10 Standard as soon as my next paycheck arrives.
Corel Painter is up to version 11 now, but Corel is unusually nice about letting you upgrade from really old versions, so I think I can wait for version 12 to upgrade. Photoshop and Illustrator, while crazily expensive to buy initially, have decent upgrade pricing. They're on version CS5 now and I'll need to buy upgrades for both before they go to CS6, even though the feature set isn't that different from what I have now, or I could lose my upgrade-path pricing. Photoshop does have some kind of new brush/painting system, which will be nice, but it still won't rival Corel Painter, from what I've read, so...meh.
Anyway, when I add up the cost of buying Shade and upgrading Vue, Photoshop, and Illustrator, I start to get in the range of 1000 bucks. Eep. So I'll have to keep a sharp eye on release dates etc, because I can't really justify invest that kind of money up-front into a graphics business that's currently hibernating. If I buy Shade to start with, then I can complete some new models using that and the older apps. Then I can sell the models to (barely) fund the rest of the upgrades, hopefully before they do another version update and take away the upgrade discount. Anyway, I think that's a plan. We'll see how real life intersects with it.
