What do you think of Moray's price ?
I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.

But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
for registration.

I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
hides behind Moray...

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eric wrote:
> 
> What do you think of Moray's price ?
> I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
> 
> But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
> for registration.
> 
> I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
> hides behind Moray...

Hi Eric,

  It is really a simple matter of economics. Softronics which produces the
Moray software is in business to make money from the products they produce.
They have never given the impression that is was to be donated for nothing
and have set the prices at a level where they can afford to spend time on
continued development of the program.
  I am a long time user of Pov-Ray and can say there is no other modeler that
I am aware of that has had as long an association with Pov and has made an
honest effort to keep up with the changes constantly being made to Pov. Most
other modelers for Pov usually last through a couple of years of development
and then simply disappear. The People at Softronics have proven that they are
at least willing to stick around for the duration and make this the best Pov
modeler available.
 Remember this not the only product they make and for it to continue to be a
priority project they have to have money coming in to support that development.
If they have another product that generates more income for them then they are
obligated to spend more time developing the money making product than a product
that is not creating income for them. If more people actually would register
Moray they could probably afford to drop the price a little (I'm guessing here).
  If you compare it's abilities against other much costlier products like 3DS Max
and LightWave (which have no direct support for Pov) you will find that it has
many similar features at a fraction of the cost of those costly products. It's
up to you to decide whether you want to pay the registration fee but personally
I think the price is both fair and reasonable for the quality of the modelling
interface it offers you as a user of Pov-Ray.

-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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Have you priced any comparable modellers? I don't think you will find any
that will beat the Moray/Povray combo for under $200
eric <ski### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:37a9f186@news.povray.org...
> What do you think of Moray's price ?
> I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
>
> But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to
pay
> for registration.
>
> I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
> hides behind Moray...
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Ken wrote:
>Softronics have proven that they are

 Lutz my apologies for misspelling SoftTronics.

-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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Expensive??  Compared to what?

I personally think Moray is indispensable.  But it still can't do everything
I need it to.  So I also use other, more complex, modelers, like Rhino, and
import the work into Moray for texturing and placement.  Rhino alone is $800
($200 if you have a valid student ID!).  How much is 3D Studio??

So you still think $89 (?) is expensive??

Dave Kreskowiak


Steven Durham <ste### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:37aa34f8@news.povray.org...
> Have you priced any comparable modellers? I don't think you will find any
> that will beat the Moray/Povray combo for under $200
> eric <ski### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:37a9f186@news.povray.org...
> > What do you think of Moray's price ?
> > I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful
software.
> >
> > But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to
> pay
> > for registration.
> >
> > I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> > price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> > distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of
work
> > hides behind Moray...
> >
> >
>
>

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Moray is dirt cheap for what you get.  One trick ponies like Poser cost
$129 when discounted.  You can't even buy two current games for your
Playstation for $80 - so if you consider the amount of time you save in
performing scene layout (even if you do final hand tuning of the POV-Ray
script), it's a big win.

I've spent somewhere in the $3000 range on compilers and upgrades over
the last ten years.  I can't imagine not having solid tools to get the
job done.  If you are going to do CG, you need some way to model,
texture, and render.  Moray provides the first two, with POV-Ray (or my
own plugin...) providing the last.

When the animation stuff is finally working, the cost of Moray +
whatever the plugin cost is will give you the majority of the capability
of the high end packages at an order of magnitude less cost.

Sounds like Moray is a winner in the price/performance tradeoff.

Xander

P.S. I'm quite aware of alternatives, including fairly cheap ones like
Blender, Stomp, POVCAD, ...  The best way for you to get an answer to
you question is to use as many of the available tools as possible.  Once
you know what's there, what it can do, and what each costs, you can
decide what makes sense.

eric wrote:
> 
> What do you think of Moray's price ?
> I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
> 
> But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
> for registration.
> 
> I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
> hides behind Moray...

Post a reply to this message

eric wrote:
> 
> What do you think of Moray's price ?
> I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
> 
> But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
> for registration.

  It's time for you to explore "raw" Pov; take the time to try almost
every
feature "manually";  once you've made the complete tour, and made some
scenes
by hand, you will have gained a deeper knowledge of Pov (wich Moray
can't give
you, for some reasons), and you will be able to decide wether you need
Moray
(or other tools) or not.  With your gained experience, you will anyway
make 
much better use of Moray.

Fabien.

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Ken wrote:

> eric wrote:
> >
> > What do you think of Moray's price ?
> > I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
> >
> > But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
> > for registration.
> >
> > I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> > price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> > distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
> > hides behind Moray...
>
>
> Moray they could probably afford to drop the price a little (I'm guessing here).
>   If you compare it's abilities against other much costlier products like 3DS Max

In fact, its interface is almost exactly teh same as 3DS Max's. Its has one of teh
best texture editors around.And it has total support for POV(it'd be nice if it could
just export geometry to RIB, too...hint hint, plugins makers.)

> and LightWave (which have no direct support for Pov) you will find that it has
> many similar features at a fraction of the cost of those costly products. It's
> up to you to decide whether you want to pay the registration fee but personally
> I think the price is both fair and reasonable for the quality of the modelling
> interface it offers you as a user of Pov-Ray.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler
>
> mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
> http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm



--
You Know You've Been Raytracing Too Long When:
 You have ever "Hard-Coded" a bezier patch.

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Alexander Enzmann wrote:

> P.S. I'm quite aware of alternatives, including fairly cheap ones like
> Blender, Stomp

Does anyone know where that is? Tony's page expired at his school, and now theres
nowhere to get it on the web. Anyone want to put the Java app on their page? I'll
give it to them if they'll do that.

> , POVCAD, ...  The best way for you to get an answer to
> you question is to use as many of the available tools as possible.  Once
> you know what's there, what it can do, and what each costs, you can
> decide what makes sense.
>
> eric wrote:
> >
> > What do you think of Moray's price ?
> > I'm new to ray tracing and POVRay, and Moray is indeed a useful software.
> >
> > But today, I'm planning not using Moray anymore, since I can't afford to pay
> > for registration.
> >
> > I think itsa price is very high, especially when you compare to POVRay's
> > price, of course.. :O) But even compared to software sold through mass
> > distribution, it looks expensive.. even when I realize that a lot of work
> > hides behind Moray...



--
You Know You've Been Raytracing Too Long When:
 You have ever "Hard-Coded" a bezier patch.

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Alex Magidow wrote:
> Stomp
> Does anyone know where that is?

Of course I know where that is sheeeeesh !
http://homepages.msn.com/RedmondAve/stomp3d/download.html

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 700+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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