Plehrac, good for you, they do offer great capabilities if you can figure out how to use them.
You did, you are in the minority, these are NOT selling well. Why, because their are
a lot more of ‘Me’s” out there than you’s (with respect) These tools will die without
improvements. And Frankly, Brian and myself, have spent more time promoting ei
and its tools and capabilities FOR FREE that at some point its pretty obvious where
the roadblock is. We made numerous compelling cases for how to sell MORE of these.
Based on logic and the 3d market. Users like you are great, but their just arent
enough of you.
......
Whether Trestle can import AI files or not has nothing to do with what the
Paralumino line offers the EI community. Talk of possible new customers
based on a feature like this is speculation at best............
.......
EVERYTHING is speculation based on facts. With this feature, I CAN PERSONALLY
reach roughly “100,000” eyeballs WITH a compelling reason to not only want
the plug ins but buy the App itself. Right now if I described HOW you had to get
these plugs to work, 99% of those eyes would glaze over and stop reading.
People want to understand how to make something work. AI is a language spoken
by millions of artists. Wires and polylines is terminology spoken by thousands at best,
which a huge percentage of those people ALREADY have picked a 3d app and
wouldn’t be potential customers for ei anyway. So, speculation at best means
you are ignoring the MARKETING of these tools. Speculation plays the percentages.
Ill take 100,000 potential new customers over maybe reaching a few hundred.
I think I win with your “speculation at best” comment. What I am talking about
is a very safe bet.
......
but Igors are not philanthropists. I can understand fully them not wanting to be in that position. I can also
understand why that have no enthusiasm for v2 when so many have overlooked v1.
.....
You obviously are unaware of the financial “arrangement” with these. Brian is
the one giving his time for free, and believe me, his time is much more costly
than the Igors. If you read cg talk as well as this thread, the case for ai import
is OVEWHELMING. Why do we want it, not because it would be “nice” as you
put it. But because it would become marketable to a huge number of new
users. Translation, MORE users and the survival and FLOURISHING of the great
set of plug ins. I want to be as polite as I can, but the Igors appear very
stubborn here. I cant reveal more, its Brians baby, but theres more to this
development you are unaware of.
.....
The point that has been missed is that there is a lot of talk about what
features people want to see in EI and it’s plugs but talk is cheap.
Whether Trestle can import AI files or not has nothing to do with what the
Paralumino line offers the EI community.
.....
You are SO wrong here, careful when you tell me or Brian that talk is cheap.
I paid $7500 for EI. I own virtually EVERY 3rd party tool EVER made for ei.
It’s none of your business, BUT I have been, and AM still willing to invest Thousands
of MY OWN dollars to make THIS or another ai import mograph friendly
tool available to EI. Are YOU. talk is cheap, your right about that......
Thanks for your reply. I would first like to let you know that my appreciation for Brian and everything he has done for the EI community is boundless and I think he knows that. I’ll support him in any way I can and I would also like to support you in your endeavors.
There are a couple points you made that I’d like to address. First, if a user can’t figure out how to use the Paralumino line of plugs, the chances of said user getting anything usable out of EI is slim in my personal opinion. I fail to see how the inclusion of ai importing makes the Para plugs simpler or more difficult to use. Using your logic, if ai importing was added to Trestle, users would be able to import line art without being able to figure out how the plugs work in order to get something usable out of them.
For what it’s worth, I try to always be ‘careful’ with my words, talk IS cheap. I’m not directing that comment towards people who bought the Paralumino line and certainly not towards Brian, it’s directed at those who clamor for upgraded capabilities without having bought the base product line. I just see a lot of posts by people who ask for new plugs/features by third party vendors but don’t support them fully by not buying what is currently available.
As far as ‘EVERYTHING is speculation based on facts’ is concerned, the facts of the matter are that no matter how many eyes see an ai importer in EI, if people don’t buy EI, it means nothing to our community. Until the user base expands or the current base supports the 3rd party developers better by buying the plugs, it’s just hype. If new users are stymied by the Para suite, how does an ai importer in Trestle help that situation?
It’s my personal opinion that trying to approach the subject in a pro-Igors fashion is going to provide better results than the cacophony that is currently happening. I think that the most effective way to get what we want from 3rd party developers like Brian is to support them by buying their products. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to do with the Para suite, now I can’t live without it.
If you think that the only thing that’s missing from EI and preventing mass adoption of the program is an ai importer, I recommend developing one. I look forward to buying it and including it in my Paralumino workflow. For now, I’ll still have to take the extra 5 minutes to put my ai files through Invigorator or EIM.
You are oversimplifying my comments. Brian and I happen to AGREE on this.
What am I to you then? I dont get how to use some of his plug ins, but Ive
won numerous national Promax awards and Emmys for my animation with
the program. How did I do that? There is a huge number of users who
want to get into 3d that find cinema and maya etc too time consuming to
learn. A ‘motion graphics module’ would be a huge selling point. This is
simply obvious based on the numbers. You are the type of user who is a
bit more hi end. Tesla is the future hi end of EI. Putting down users who
dont understand the plug ins shows your misunderstanding of this whole topic.
ITS NOT selling very well, mostly due to its ease of use, NOT its great
capabilities. AI is easy and accessable to most of us. Modeler Isnt, and
tesla is not integrated.
over and out… Nothing personal, I just believe in this so strongly I WANT
to put my money where my mouth is. I love EI (I also am learning MAYA,
ever so slowly)
using EIM’s great for AI import, but what if you don’t have a machine that you can even install it on? i stopped using it because i crashed it pretty often. silo works good if you don’t try to drag the window the wrong way...but it doesn’t import AI files..
Vue 6 is supposed to, but good luck getting that to work…
Having a ‘Motion Graphics Module’ in EI sounds great. I think that the current Paralumino product line goes a long way to fulfilling that need. My point was that adding an ai import function to Trestle will not make the Para plugs easier to use, people who have issues now will have issues then.
Inferring that I’m putting any users down is unproductive and the last thing I would do. Please refrain from these charged and misleading statements as I’m only trying to help the situation by showing how we can get what we as a user base need from Igors. It’s my belief that if enough people buy the v1 plugs, there will be v2.
Peter
PS I’ve been modeling in EIM on my OCTO OSX 10.5.2 for 2 straight days, works fine so far.
“First, if a user can’t figure out how to use the Paralumino line of plugs, the chances of said user getting anything usable out of EI is slim in my personal opinion.”
In fairness, Plehrac You put ME, and others like me down, precisely with your own words here. So, I dont feel my words were misleading or charged in anyway. I think my reel shows a little ability in EI and I cant figure out how to get ‘lines into paraluminos plug ins. I told Brian that in a phone conversation.
.....
“My point was that adding an ai import function to Trestle will not make the Para plugs easier to use, people who have issues now will have issues then.”
That is a bit presumptious and arrogant frankly. And again aimed right at a user like me. And totally wrong.
.....
I again spoke with Brian a few hours ago about this, and he offered to show me in person how the plugins work. I declined politely, telling him I already see how they work, and I GET IT. Revolver is easy, im talking about trestle, swage and scrim. I understand hi end 3d terminology, and am a graduate of the Gnoman School of Visual Effects in Hollywoods fast track 10 40hr weeks of MAYA. I am far from perfect, but I GET most of what these apps offer and
how to do them, I just once in a while run into a small roadblock that stops me from getting to the fun part of a feature. Thats called learning. Could I learn Brians Plugs as is. YES. But why not make v2 in a way that thousands of mograph
artists can EASILY relate too. Once your in the plug, its pretty easy. People like yourself will still love it because new
features most likely will be added to v2 as well as ai import.
Ive been pretty defensive of your comments. From reading the bulk of your posts, I can tell
you are good and intelligent EI user. I do not want you to think I dont respect your input.
Thanks for your input and praise of Paraluminos plug ins. They really are very cool.
I would just like to simply point out that the plugins shouldn’t be referred to as “Brian’s plugs”. It was a true combined effort between the Igors and myself. I’m sure you know that and it seems silly for me to point it out...but if the Igors are still reading this thread, then I don’t want them to think that I want others to get the impression the plugins were entirely my effort. Nothing could have been accomplished without them.
My focus at this point is to just keep selling. Maybe hopefully I’ll sell enough at one point for them to reconsider going with v2.
I would like to apologize to the igors, Brian and anyone else that I have
mis spoke about.
......
I will be taking a nice long hiatus from the forums, please dont all cheer at once....
Hi, everybody. I have been in this tread from the begining but i had nothing to say but look the different arguments with the most interest. I´m not a mograph dedicated person, i´m more interested in character animation but sometimes have some mograph to do. Normally are logo animation and stuff like that, and need precision there. I use Ai or freehand as logo construction reference and build carefully in EiM, limited and hard? yes, but precise. The clients are not happy with free interpretation of their logos… i´m sure Ai import could be a good think for EiAS.
BUT, a big but, i never understood this plug ins as something useful for me. My fault probably. They where interesting but, for some reason, didn´t ring a bell in my limited little brain. I come from a designer background, sorry, and user from the good old days of US$ 7.500 for the app.
I moust confess that the Mograph plug in from C4D looked very atractive for me but i don´t want to be near C4D again.
I don´t know if these plug ins for EiAS can do the same work because never get an idea of their posibilities. An communication problem? maybe a nice video demo of the thing working, not one by one but all the set working together? i don´t know.
I´m looking the videos in the Paralumino site again, looking what i missed before.
BTW great work in puting EiAS on top again, Brian, Scott.
A big thanks
We all have spend money on a product for life is like getting married, i feel like that sometimes i am waiting for EI to take good care of the users that bought the application… for me it was 1500 $ almost 10 years ago i do not even want to remember how long ago it was. It is nor fare for us users, dedicated must of our life to invest in an application to just quit doing things in what we believe in. And i am not talking cheap here i payed a lot of money long time ago and now i am confused seeing the ambient that there is with EI, it looks like us users have to save the company where it should be the company trying to invest the big bucks.
For example how come C4D has gained such strong position in the industry, how come SILO still alive, even Amapi still producing. I bought Amapi at the same time than EIAS v2.8 and is funny they still making $$, they still alive and coming with great stuff everyday. Where has been EIAS all those years we cant even bring an .eps or .ai file into EIAS. Way to go!!!
I payed the big bucks, and i still believe in EITG so many things have happened with PLAY and all that. Lets forget about the past and learned from the mistakes. My opinion should be considered as everyone else who pay for the software.
Now days there is tons of people downloading all kind of software(piracy) . That must be the secret of C4D or Maya or even After Effects they become available to be distributed to all parts of the world. You goggle it and you will find them.
Is simple ....but we here have to fight to bring a freaking .eps file into animator. Programmers,artist,technicians, hobbiest all arguing what will be the best way to bring an important cross platform format file as eps , is incredible. I am tire of this , i am going to the Himalaya to meditate with the monks and forget about computer graphics.
Sorry if i insulted anyone but i think a lot of things should be done to promote EI, like for example 3d Kiwi has C4D Cafe, so many tutorials available and plug ins and is amazing how this little insect has grown to take the sales from EI ....Autodesk joined Alias Wavefront and look where they are now,becoming an amazing beast.
Small companies are using these tools and us artist have to become available in learning those tools just in case they have it at the job we are applying at and they want you to know this software because is what they have and they are used to this type of applications in their pipeline
Well i have said enough man.
The new website will have tour links in more plain site. If you have a specific request on how to use a certain function, request a demo and I’ll will custom make one for you.
I understand your frustration. Trust me...I do. You’re right...EI does need to step up to the marketing plate as well...but realistically, the developer and customer have a type of relationship that needs to be respected. The respect needs to go both ways. I find that those companies that take an active interest in listening to their customers usually have a better time succeeding in the marketplace. (Apple is a good example) But you can’t please everyone all the time. As far as EI’s participation goes...they’ve done a good job enhancing features and keeping the company afloat, but a poor job getting a vision for the company out to the public.
Some suggest the company/customer relationship ends the moment the customer pays the company for a product. Personally I don’t agree with that philosophy. I believe the company/customer relationship STARTS the moment the customer shells out money. That relationship continues back and forth with the two providing feedback for each other. Its synergy.
The company gives the customer product and services while the customer gives the company feedback, testimonials, examples of how the product is being used and so forth. This in turn forms the foundation of the product’s community and in any family there is going to be arguments along with good times.
Right now the Paralumino family has some unhappy members.
The users are unhappy because they want to see new features along with more info on how to use the product. I hear that and understand.
The developers are unhappy because they haven’t seen enough purchases and promotion of the product to justify further development. I hear that and understand.
The marketer/producer is unhappy because he feels the feature set is incomplete and needs more development in order to give the users what they really want. Its hard to sell a product when you have to keep apologizing for certain shortcomings.
Each one of these sets of people need to have their needs addressed. Its my job to figure out how to do it. Hopefully all members of the family, particularly the developers, will let me know if I’m getting closer to achieving their needs.
