Extended License Depreciation

Character Creator General
1

Greetings,

I noticed Realallusion are sunsetting the extended license. Whilst I think this is a positive change I am a little disappointed that I am left out of pocket having previously paid a premium for extended licenses for my content.

How do others feel about this issue?

I was hoping that Realallusion may have announced plans to compensate extended license holders for previous purchases.

Has there been any suggestion that extended license holders will receive any store credit or plugins to make up for the removal of extended licenses?

Thanks

2

I always try to wait for a good sale or combine products for a rebate so that I get a good value for myself, because I don’t need anything “right now” and it’s just a hobby for me.

I think Premium prices are for people who need items right now, because they might depend on them in their profession. But if you use them professionally, you usually have a lot more money to spend and it’s not much of an issue. You’ll also be able to write taxes off from the purchase price.

In the past it was often possible to get Extended license assets for a largely reduced price during sales or special deals which made them nearly as affordable as Standard license assets. You just had to have patience.

It would be interesting to know if Reallusion removed the Extended license because they generally sold very poorly and people waited for sales or stopped buying Extended license assets in the end. This could explain, why a lot of their own assets were sold as Extended Ready for the Standard license price. They definitely encountered support overhead to explain the license tiers to customers repeatedly.

3

Thanks for taking time to leave a reply.

One of the motivators for me purchasing extended licenses over the standard license was the usage restrictions regarding content being used across multiple characters.

For example, using character morphs to modify and generate multiple characters in a collection for use in film-making projects and games.

I often concept in CC4 and then move back and forth to apps such as zBrush,Blender,Painter & Marvellous to finish characters before integrating them into Unreal or Blender for final renders or playable experiences.

I had concerns around reusing morphs and content across multiple characters in the context of video game characters specifically. One of the restrictions related to the use of content in character-creators in the context of videogames.

It appears that usage of CC assets in the context of character creators is still only permissible under an enterprise license. Which for lots of indie developers and small teams is still likely to be cost prohibitive and not competitive with other solutions.

As suggested here, EULA Query

I agree that some of the sales and bundle deals were enticing and would strongly suggest people purchase content at the price point that makes sense for them.

You offer great advice about being patient and waiting for the best deals.

Overall, I do think the move to a more permissible license as the new standard is a good direction to be heading.

I am a small, independent digital artist that uses CC4 when concepting, storyboarding, & prototyping.

Personally, I am waiting for CC5 to drop before reassessing whether or not It’s worth integrating fully into my next Unreal-led project.

I am optimistic about some of the new changes but with Metahumans closing the gap I often wonder if investing more time and money into the Realallusion suite is a false economy.

I am hopeful that the new license terms and metahuman support will make it easier to fully integrate CC5 characters into Unreal projects without some of the headaches that currently accompany that workflow.

Thanks again for sharing your view!

4

@CreativeStrife

Regarding your comments about compensation or store credit for Extended License purchasers there are no plans for this.

As with all price changes, sales offers, discounts and license changes, these come into effect on a specified date and are not back datable. In the case of the Extended License removal, this took place on the 1st August.

However, please find below the official statement from our Content Team regarding the changes.

Reallusion has expanded the scope of the Standard License to enable more content creators to realize their creative projects at a lower cost, while also supporting the dedicated efforts of content developers.

We sincerely thank all the customers who have previously purchased the Extended License to meet their project needs. To those customers, Reallusion offers its heartfelt appreciation—your support and contributions have played a key role in sustaining the continued development of the digital content industry. We also genuinely wish your business continued success and growth.

With this updated Content License Policy, we hope to benefit a broader range of users and move forward together in the increasingly competitive digital landscape.

5

You don’t need to use Reallusion assets. Since Character Creator let’s you import other 3D models you can just use them instead. The Enterprise license limitations are only applicable for Reallusion assets. There is a lot of other high quality stuff out there that can be used in CC and iClone.

6

Thanks for clarifying Pete_RL.

Unless the terms have changed in a significant way, third-party assets imported into CC4 that are used in conjunction with any content from the Realallusion store (including morph presets) would be restricted in their use.

I appreciate that I do not have to use Reallusion store content, but my limited understanding is that Realallusion position themselves to appeal to commercial pipelines.

I generally sculpt and use my own morph presets for most projects. However, some of my extended licenses cover certain character sets to help iterate on early concepts.

There is limited upsided to importing custom models, clothing & character props into CC4 if I cannot use any of the CC4/5 store content or features to make further modifications without being subject to a requirement to purchase an enterprise license to use those modified characters freely.

At that point, there is no real benefit to bringing the assets into CC4. I may as well just stick with zBrush, Blender/Maya & Unreal and completely remove CC from the pipeline.

The game character creator usage is an edgecase and perhaps not indicative of common usage scenarios for other users.

There is definitely still room for CC in my overall workflow during preproduction. However it becomes harder to justify the use of CC in production & with some specific projects because of the reasons I outlined.

My broader point was that if Realallusion hope to stay competitive moving forward failing to retain existing customers will not help satisfy that aim.

A lower user base across the board is bad for Reallusion and the content creators and developers invested in this ecosystem.

When I initially invested in Realallusion software the market was not anywhere near as competitive as it is now.

I enjoy using the software and products and will continue to use theme where appropriate.

I look forward to CC5 and will reassess my character creation pipeline for specific projects upon release.

I hope other users have fun with the latest releases and new licensing terms.

Thanks again for offering an alternative view.

7

You can of course use the software to modify your own (!) content without needing an Enterprise license afterwards. The Enterprise license is only needed if you use Components like ccAvatar, ccProject, ccSlider, ccHair, ccCloth, ccShoes, and ccGloves sold by Reallusion in your project.

8

Now that you are able to reuse components across multiple characters this is less of an issue than it used to be.

However, the fact that you cannot use: ccAvatar, ccProject, ccSlider, ccHair, ccCloth, ccShoes, and ccGloves sold by Reallusion goes back to my previous point.

I can purchase store content & content packs that include sliders and character presets but If I apply and use them with original creations I require an enterprise license in certain situations.

The value proposition for investing in the suite really depends on what your project usage requirements are.

The ability to reuse content across multiple characters is certainly an improvement and does address a core problem with the legacy licensing agreements.

There is still an opportunity to leverage the software to speed things along but you have to be very diligent when actually deploying content in a finished project.

Have you used any content whilst iterating and modifying your work that is subject to specific license restrictions?

It creates a layer of hesitancy and confusion at best and liability at worst.

Going back to the official response, Reallusion “offers its heartfelt appreciation… with this updated content license policy, we hope to benefit a broader range of users and move forward together in this increasingly competitive digital landscape”

Appreciation is nice, but money talks. The reality is that people that have previously invested in extended licenses are not being compensated.

The underlying message here is that we are targeting new users and those that have invested in this ecosystem prior are of lower priority now.

That’s fine I understand the financial motivations for this decision.

However, it does present a risk of pushing away the legacy user base in pursuit of new users.

My hope is that the needle can be thread in such a way that new users are brought in without losing too many existing users in the process.

For me personally, a goodwill gesture and store credit would have alleviated some of my frustrations with paying over the odds for content that is now cheaper and has the same usage terms as what I paid double for in the past.

Beyond content store licence changes I had a similar experience after investing in the 3DExchange Pipeline previously.

The end result is that I am less likely to continue investing in store content & plugins moving forward. I will still use the tools and suite when it makes sense to do so but I am far less likely to purchase store content moving forward.

Overall, I still believe there is currently room for Reallusion in my personal pipeline. As time goes on I feel like competing solutions are likely to close the gap.

If you’ve already invested the time to learn and leverage the tools then it makes sense to keep using them where applicable.

If you are a new user looking for software to create and modify character art then the other options available today are increasingly more enticing.

See CC5 vs Metahumans

I would still generally recommend people explore the suite and if it is right for their project but any recommendation to do so comes with some serious caveats.

Ultimately, it’s still difficult to wholeheartedly recommend the Reallusion suite to new users.

I wish that wasn’t the case.

9

Good to see such a big consumer friendly improvement to licenses. Yea I paid extra for alot of the extended licenses I got, but I still think this is a good change going forward.