rnollman@maxzilla.encore.com (Richard Nollman) (05/29/91)
I read Wayne Knapp's posting explaining Hash Enterprises position on the marketing of their product. The postings that prompted it were critical of Hash's marketing and sales policies. I agreed with the original posters, and initially was very angry when I read Wayne's response. His second reply expanded and clarified his first and helped me to cool down a little. The gist of Wayne's position (and I assume he speaks for Hash) seems to be thatHash wants to reach low-end users ($500 vs. $1000 and up for high-end users). Advertising, dealer discount, expensive demos, all push the final price way up. The user gets a much more substantial product in the end to do ANIMATION and not RAY TRACING (I get the message). If this is true, I am the user who you are trying to reach and I am frustrated. Let me explain. I own Imagine and love it. It has opened the world of computer graphics to me in a large way. So large that it has prompted a career-change. Deluxpaint was nice (an excellent piece of software); but for me, Imagine is the big leagues (well, maybe AAA). I look forward to buying DCTV and/or Colorburst and possibly the Toaster (when it is available for the 3000) so that I can display my animations in 24-bit. I love the Amiga platform because most hardware and software is affordable relative to other platforms (read MAC). And lots of exciting new stuff is coming out (the explosion of 24-bit graphics on the Amiga is in a word: breathtaking). The strange thing is that the main reason I bought the Amiga is to do character animation. Imagine is wonderful, but the more I read about Animation Journeyman, the more excited I become. However, I have a couple of problems with buying Animation Journeyman. 500 bucks is a large chunk of cash. With $500 I can buy DCTV and 1/2 of a composite monitor or I can buy Colorburst, or 1/3 of a Toaster (with Lightwave). I do not know anyone who owns Animation Journeyman or who knows anyone who owns it. I cannot see it at my local Amiga dealer. I attended AmigaWorld Expo in NY in the spring of this year (saw Colorburst, DCTV, the Toaster, and lots of other interesting stuff) but Hash was not there. There is no demo that I know of or video tape. I had a discussion with a friend who is a very sophisticated computer graphics guru type, who owns Imagine and the Toaster, and has produced some very sophisticated animations, and works for a computer graphics company. He has the same concerns. We have both heard rumors that the rendering quality is not good that good (I admit a relative judgement by someone who posted to the net) and that rendering times (a very important ingrediant for producing animation) were slow. These are rumors, but without access to the software, I can either take the plunge and risk what I consider big bucks, or wait until enough people become familiar enough with the package to do some benchmarks. I have to admit that when I read the lenthy review posted by Sean Cunningham (?), I was excited. It sounds as if Hash has developed a great package. And maybe I will buy it anyway. But if I am hestitating and my friend is hesitating, there must be others who are sitting back and waiting. I have known about Animation Journeyman for quite some time now. My decision to buy Imagine over Animation Journeyman was based on the simple fact that there was not much information available about it at the time (last December)-- at least to me anyway. I could go to my local dealer and talk about it, and see it. I met people who had Turbo Silver or Imagine and could demonstrate it to me. Once I bought Imagine, there were tons of people who could help me with the "learning wall". If I buy Animation Journeyman I have to depend on Hash Customer Service. And the funny thing is that Animation Journeyman sounds like it comes closer to what I want to do with animation than Imagine. The bottomline to all this is that there must be a way that Hash can make the program available to people like me to assuage our fears. In the Amiga marketplace $500 is alot of money. If that is your audience, you must realize that Amigamoids tend to save their money up to buy that extra 4 megs of memory, or that new piece of software. If I was a production studio and had lots of clients, I probably would be buying the high-end packages (at least for my final renderings my clients) and would not be concerned with cost. So Wayne, is there an answer? Or am I just going to have to wait for all those others to spring for the package... Rich Nollman