What is this about you have to buy a special licence to use there device commercially?
Joe
That’s the licence. It comes up with a nag screen after a bit and you have to say you’re using the personal licence or upgrade (if you’re using the personal licence that is).
But, why would you need a license? For what is essentially a mouse. It sounds absolutely crazy to me.
Joe
I agree its kinda lame. However, they’re borrowing this model of a licensing scheme on hardware from certain examples of software in their industry (CAD, primarily.) In this industry, there’s the attitude that if the user is making money from use of the product, then they wanna get their “cut”. It’s why an OSS CAD app, while being attempted, will have a long row to hoe. (Not counting the military-released BRL-CAD in this assumption.)
any other vendors offering similar products? there used to be a lot of joysticks offering stuff like this about ten years ago (“space orb” comes to mind), but they all needed two hands…
I must admit the license puts me off, but I guess compared to a decent sized wacom tablet it’s cheap enough, as long as it’s a one off payment that is…
Trouble is I can’t live without a wacom, but I haven’t needed a space navigator.
If this is true, that has got to be one of the dumbest PR moves I’ve ever heard. Their product hasn’t even been widely accepted or fully integrated in many products, yet. This will only give possible consumers a reason to pause, shop around for a better product, or simply decide that life and work is fine without their product. Their product relies heavily on being an impulse purchase instead of being a necessary purchase. It’s a stupid move for general consumers, they must be only targeting corporate entities. …mistake.
…it’s basically a freaking mouse/trackball! LOL
It was definitely on my shopping list…was.
I’m with kernond. I was going to buy the Space Navigator until I saw this “commercial use license” bullshit, then I was too peeved to buy it. Like I said in an earlier post, what’s next - Toyota will charge you 50% more for your Corolla if you use it to deliver pizza? This idea needs to be killed before it ever gets started!
glad to hear i was not the only one who thought the marketing was complete crap. i considered the personal use one, but it was too expensive for an input device, and i would just keep thinking how much i did not want to support a company with ethics like that. so i didn’t, and i won’t. but i will participate in discussions about how stupid their marketing is…
A commercial licence for an input device is not really a new idea - its just a very, very stupid idea that belongs in the stone age. Its the kind of idea thats borne from “hey, if theyre willing to pay 10,000 dollars for their 3d modelling package, they’ll pay extra bucks for a device”.
But thats the same dinosaur thinking that got the music industry into the heap that its in now.
Best thing to do is to let people know that this is in fact, quite a ludicrous thing to do - like a hammer manufacturer charging royalties on stuff you make with the hammer (or wacom charging a ‘commercial licence’ on their tablets, and so on). Its not illegal, its just stupid, and needs to be discouraged so that the practice dies out.
Yeah, and it’s like modeling with a joystick?! I barely use Blenders flying mode… so I think that this thing is more or less useless for a serious use with the Blender.
Well, I bought one with a personal license and I find it quite useful. Unfortunately, I’ve not been using it lately, because there are no recent blender builds that support it - hence, if there’s anyone capable of making a fresh SVN build with SpaceNavigator support, I’d be really grateful 
I use the space navigator (small single puck) personal edition, which doesn’t come up with nag screens. It’s an outdated business model I feel, over charging for a commercial user for something that isn’t any more expensive to manufacture than the personal version (since they’re both the exact same).
Oh, and you can grab a version here. All the latest ones now have NDOF merged, you can ignore the Space navigator advert (like) on the left. I gave him the win32 build only for a nice 3dC banner to appear, they need to remove that since the spacenav code is in the main trunk.
How would they know that one used the personal edition version for commercial work anyways? Real silly.
It’s $60 for the personal edition. That’s cheap considering my mouse cost $93. Why are you guys complaining about something that doesn’t really effect you? The marketing ploy you’re all talking about isn’t targetted at you (the “hobbiest”), that’s what they sell the personal edition for. So don’t pay for the upgrade if you don’t want to…it’s not a requirement. It’s more like insurance to prevent a lawsuit that would have a tough time getting started in the first place.
If your “pro” enough to even want to spend the first $60 for the personal edition (I don’t really see the need for this even in a pro environment), you should be making enough off of your 3d art that the additional $40 to upgrade shouldn’t effect you. if you’re not making money off your art, then this isn’t a necessity…its a luxury and you shouldn’t be surprised that you’d actually have to pay for luxury. Also keep in mind that its hard enough to prove what software was used for 3d art…forget about being able to tell what input device you used to make it.
I can understand just bitching to bitch…it helps sometimes. But I can’t understand if some of you are really getting upset about this. There are more than enough things to stress over in life…don’t stress over crap that you don’t have to worry about. Just my .02.
NOTE: after re reading this it sounds as if I’m conveying a tone of disapproval. I’m not. All questions were sincerely asked out of curiosity. There is nothing in this post written with the express intent of “putting someone down”
Some of us here do make a living out of blending, and many more look forward to. In a very literal sense, it puts a price to your freedom of doing so, so boycott this blackmailing sales model. I was seriously considering ordering one, but this put me off.
I’m not saying there aren’t people that make money off of thier art. What I am saying is, at least thru my eyes, if you’re in a position where this piece of equipement becomes a necessity…the $40 upgrade cost wouldn’t effect you. For most here…this isn’t a necessity. Even for those that think it is…it’s not. You’ve gotten by how long without it? It’s a luxury item.
I can understand boycotting something for specific reasons. What I can’t understand is refusing to buy something that, by your own admission, you wanted…simply because of an upgrade that you don’t have to get. That’s like ppl refusing upgrade thier windows me machine to xp because they don’t like vista. It’s not a required up-grade.
So who would pay the upgrade costs? Artists that make money off thier art. I’m not talking about the artists that create thier art so they can feed themselves every month. I’m talking about the “artists” that pay artists to make thier art. E.G. a 3d studio. Why would they? Because the marketing gives you the idea that if you use this product professionally, without a professional license, you could get sued.
Experiment: go to google and type in 3d art and search for images. Try to figure out what programs the artist used to create the image, and then see if you’re right. I doubt you’d be 100%…I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you can list all programs used to create the image maybe 50-75% of the time. After you find out what programs they really did use…tell me what model mouse and keyboard they used. Unless they put some type of code into the finished image…there really is no way to tell what input devices were used. Sure a trained eye can allow you to spot the difference between a tablet drawn picture and a mouse drawn picture. But could you tell me the model tablet/mouse?
But, how do you get it to initialize? (I’ve downloaded 2.46RC2 for windows.)
For those, like myself, who’ve used a spaceball (in one form or another) for years for CAD, this item has become a near-necessity simply because of the convenience and time-saving it provides. Believe me, it ain’t no “mouse/trackball” by a long shot.
While I, too, think this license scheme is fully lame (& how were they going to enforce it, again?..) I’m with HouseArrest: the benefits really can outweigh the cost. (I’m speaking as a user who employs other 3D apps besides blender, tho, so take that with a grain o’ salt, eh?)
The extra 40 are hardly the point.
You buy a horse from a stable, accepting to pay their price. Cash up front, sale done, no interests owed. Done deal. You plow the field, you get and sell produce… and a collector from the stable comes around to demand a cut out of the sale. “You didn’t tell me you were going to plow the field”. If you already paid for the horse, why pay them again? Isn’t it your business, and your business alone, what you do with your horse?
Now, let’s say you tell the stable owner you want the horse for work. He goes, “then how about ah sell you a Percheron instead of that Palomino?” It’s quite a different thing. The owner is now acknowledging market segmentation in a way the benefits you both: he sells a more expensive item, you get a horse better suited for work.
I don’t see why I have to pay for a device more depending on how I use it. Same goes for software: in truth, market segmentation in both ends usually happens by widening the product line (in both features and price) in both markets. Wacom puts better stuff inside an Intuos box than a Bamboo one, and while I think their stuff is way overpriced, the overall strategy is acceptable. 3dconnexion just… bullies more money outta you.
Ok, this sentiment I do understand and even agree with.
This is what I dont understand. Going from your previous example of a horse and a plow…have that same collector from the stable come around and demand his cut of the sale from me and the first thing I’m asking him is for him to prove the plow I used to cultivate that produce is the plow I got from him. At this point the collector would either walk away in defeat, or threaten a lawsuit. Taking that lawsuit and throwing it into the context of this thread-show me any lawyer that will be able to prove, without a shadow of a doubt (because that’s what it would take), that you used this particular input/output device to make your latest render that’s currently on the cover of (i dunno) “3d world today”. It’s not possible. Hell they can’t even accurately gauge the authenticity of most digital artwork. People are going up against prison terms for thier 2d artwork because it looks so real it’s got people questioning if its a real picture of a naked child or if it is a digital painting (looking for a link to the strory now…FOUND IT). If they can barely authentic digital art…what makes you think they’d be able to tell what model mouse you used to make it? So again I question…what’s stopping you from buying the $60 personal edition and using it to produce (and sell) your artwork?
I can understand boycotting simply for the idea. I too think its a bad idea charging 2 different prices for the same equipment. I also think it happens to be a particularly dumb business move…simply because there isn’t a viable way to ensure your “personal licensee’s” aren’t selling thier artwork. I’m sorry though, I still don’t understand boycotting something you really want, especially if the reason you’re boycotting in the first place doesn’t really effect you.
All this is is the crack game turned on hardware. It really should be expected…Bill Gates lead the way with software a long time ago. (Actually I’m sure there were others before him…I just can’t think of any that gave you their “goods” the first time and charged you out the ass for anything to use with it…other than drug dealers lol). Hell they’re doing it with music and tv now and have been for quite some time, and the internet is next. If your upset about having to pay more to use your hardware professionally wait till every email…every download…every webpage…is totaled up and charged to the same account that has a $40 charge on it for internet access already! It really is a good idea when you start thinking about competition between companies and the diversity that brings. When we start having to pay for individual channels/downloads/whatever…do you think we’re still going to have crap tv? I don’t…everyone will want you to buy thier channel. Same with music, same with the software, same with the hardware. I don’t see any of it stopping any time soon because its a tried and true marketing strategy. If my analogy is even close to what’s actually going on…it only gets more devious. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about marketing other than what I see in the stores.
Most sounds like they would disagree with me but I think its an awesome idea.
Manufactures markup their products anywhere from 2x - 5x. So its a safe bet cutting the price in half means they are not trying to make money on this move but build market share. And in turn, give people a chance to use their products. Not for commercial use is a fair trade off if there is an upgrade plan.
Software companies do this type of stuff all the time. Hardware companies just have more to lose when they cut their margins.