ANSWERED: Drop the "big release" schtick, please
And start releasing updates more incrementally again.
I've been a Quixel customer since nDo2 originally released, and a big user of the original nDo action set Teddy gifted to the CG world long before then. He's talented, and the way he markets and makes big splashes with his products is as effective as any big corporation, but it comes at a cost to his paying customers. Teddy has a longstanding habit of releasing big updates of Quixel products, maintaining it for maybe a month or two, and then big radio silence for months at a time leaving customers stuck with whatever bugs and incomplete featuresets there's left.
The last time he did this (at least for me) was when Photoshop CC 14.2 released and nDo2 was literally broken, stuck in an update loop, for half a year or so until Quixel Suite finally launched (months late) and that "fixed" it. All the while it was broken, Teddy ignored the issue whilst releasing MegaScan promo material on YouTube.
If I had to guess, Teddy's somewhere right now planning to make a big splash around GDC believing he's doing his best by us to surprise us. A lot of us would simply be happier if he'd kept up the update pace he had before December and released new features like texture rotation, VRay calibration profile, other small features and most importantly, bug, performance and crash fixes.
Instead, more than likely we won't see the small features and small fixes until MegaScans is ready to go or something else large he's keeping under wraps. It'll be great when that happens, but it makes for a frustrating experience being a Quixel customer that always buys in early.
I'll say it's never occurred to me or even makes sense to "quit" a product that does no harm sitting around and remains a click away from being useful, whenever its updated, but I'll say that passively over the last couple of years I've found myself having basically mastered Allegorithmic's tools during these months long spurts of my Quixel products being buggy/incomplete/plain nonfunctional.
I think the "big splash" approach is great for getting new customers, but in the long run will fail you in having kept them.
I've been a Quixel customer since nDo2 originally released, and a big user of the original nDo action set Teddy gifted to the CG world long before then. He's talented, and the way he markets and makes big splashes with his products is as effective as any big corporation, but it comes at a cost to his paying customers. Teddy has a longstanding habit of releasing big updates of Quixel products, maintaining it for maybe a month or two, and then big radio silence for months at a time leaving customers stuck with whatever bugs and incomplete featuresets there's left.
The last time he did this (at least for me) was when Photoshop CC 14.2 released and nDo2 was literally broken, stuck in an update loop, for half a year or so until Quixel Suite finally launched (months late) and that "fixed" it. All the while it was broken, Teddy ignored the issue whilst releasing MegaScan promo material on YouTube.
If I had to guess, Teddy's somewhere right now planning to make a big splash around GDC believing he's doing his best by us to surprise us. A lot of us would simply be happier if he'd kept up the update pace he had before December and released new features like texture rotation, VRay calibration profile, other small features and most importantly, bug, performance and crash fixes.
Instead, more than likely we won't see the small features and small fixes until MegaScans is ready to go or something else large he's keeping under wraps. It'll be great when that happens, but it makes for a frustrating experience being a Quixel customer that always buys in early.
I'll say it's never occurred to me or even makes sense to "quit" a product that does no harm sitting around and remains a click away from being useful, whenever its updated, but I'll say that passively over the last couple of years I've found myself having basically mastered Allegorithmic's tools during these months long spurts of my Quixel products being buggy/incomplete/plain nonfunctional.
I think the "big splash" approach is great for getting new customers, but in the long run will fail you in having kept them.
Replies
First off let me assure you that no one at Quixel and especially Teddy is ignoring any issue, it weighs heavy on us that we sometimes can´t push out fixes and updates as quickly as we´d like, but just like you say, in the end its the customer that suffer.
I really do sympathise with you and the "radio blackouts" is something we´re really trying to get rid of, it happens very easily for a small team in crunch mode but its bad manners towards the customers.
There is no denying that Quixel has a history of "big splash" updates, part of it is of course that we really want each update to feel like it has something and exciting, but another part of it that it takes quite some time to make an update, there are a lot of things that needs to be checked and double checked, and during that time new features are added, so it´s a bit of a mix to be honest. BUT with that being said, we have talked about smaller updates in the future, and it´s something that we hopefully will accomplish. But as I said, its not only about making the big splash, its also the danger of breaking the tool for the people who are not having any issues, and with more updates more frequently there is a definite risk, but I think there certainly is a happy medium.
So in closing, sorry for rambling on, I agree with you, and hopefully we can meet in the middle in the future
You can always release "pre-release-unstable" version for those that can afford to risk bleeding edge. You should in theory get good feedback from the community. From my point of view, I'm already having several issues with the software - bleeding edge isn't going to make too much of a difference.
I'm really not sure why they aren't updating, either it being a small Facebook update or an actual software update, just know that i'm not supporting their current way of doing things.
And their little constant "teases" with "you will know something very soon @smileyface" is irritating me. Either you have something to show or you DON'T.
At it's core I still prefer the approach that Quixel Suite takes over what I get with SD (especially to get results faster, have more material presets instead of creating everything from scratch, etc)
So I`m actually looking forward to the day the quixel suite will hopefully work as advertised and one doesn't have to rely on the current state of support anymore. Support that unfortunately seems to be somewhat limited to calming people down with words instead of trying to find a better way of improving the software.
Of course it sounds great initially when it is stated that 'the bugs weigh heavy on them' and that 'sometimes' they are not able to push out updates 'as quickly' as they'd like but if you are like me, a customer that hasn't had a usable version in over half a year, this starts sounding like a bad joke. (all the support I got so far was limited to nice words and promises. no fixes or proper workaround solutions as of yet)
as I`ve stated before, it would be great if new features would get pushed back in favor of bug fixes and communication of those - at least in the state the suite is currently in (comparing the forums of allegorithmic and quixel, there is definitely a trend that can be seen in problems users have)
Actually, I rarely have any error in 1.8. I always give time for quixel to finish thinking before clicking elsewhere. It only crashes if I click rapidly a button by accident. For me, so far so great.
What's the best way to help you guys in troubleshooting and error reporting?
Panzerdraco - The best way is to create a new thread, describe the problem as detailed as possible, and also report back if the solution worked or if you found the solution yourself, that makes a huge difference!
Hi,
I just have a question -n- comment, that has been on my mind.
Is the more transparency and the no more radio silence only valid when someone ask what's going on?
How about a weekly progress reports or even better a developer log, that people can check daily.
For example here is two versions of Blenders gooseberry branch developer logs - Official and MiikaH's.
Of course though, this is only my $.02 cents worth of being a customer.
Regards,
~Tung
Part of the problem of keeping features secret on a tool is that although it's a big, pleasant surprise when a new feature is revealed, you also deprive your community of the opportunity to rethink their workflow to adjust for it and depending on how fundamental, you might have your userbase reworking or repeating work to implement workflow changes. If you give people lead time on a new feature, you at least give them an idea that 'hey, this is going to be easier or different soon, don't reily too heavily on how you're doing it now' instead of turning things on their head.
Take the implementation of selfillum textures being a static lighting source in a recent UE4 update - you might have just spent a great deal of time placing light sources to approximate that effect and that feature not only made your work unneeded, but now you have to go back and undo some of the effort that you've put out. Instead of springing something like that on the userbase, they gave a few weeks of lead time, not just to hype the new release, but to help their users prepare for it.
The longer you hold out on discussing updates, the more likely those issues that the feature has been added to address have been handled separately by your community.
Very valid points all round. You are nailing why there are times of silence and times of frequent updating. The problem up until now is and has been that nDo, nDo2, dDo legacy, NDO, DDO & 3DO have been built marketed maintained etc by myself only. That means there have been periods of heavy activity, and periods of silence when the next push, or iteration of a tool, is being prepared. Not optimal at all for many reasons.
I'll explain what the process of building the company has been along with building the products and why there is so much silence. It is really the least you could ask from me, especially when you are suffering from bugs that during certain periods are seemingly not being addressed at all, with no information as to why.
While the tools have been just me, the company has grown quite big over the past few years, namely due to the development of Megascans. This is a team of 15 that I'm responsible for. On this project the different scanning technologies (6 now), data computation pipelines, and surface library compilation are all my sole responsibilities, and providing the teams with the custom tools they need to work efficiently. This has been going on for the past 3 years alongside working on and releasing the different tools.
The reason the next update of the SUITE is taking much longer than any other regular update though is because we've been addressing the biggest structural issue, i.e. only me programming. After over a year of searching and trialing we now have additional programming talent that have been made an integral part of the team. It's something that has needed to happen for a long time but it's been easier said than done. The bad news is the production comes to a standstill while getting everyone up to speed and integrated. Thanks to this change there will however, besides stability fixes, also be painting, a new 3DO, GPU baking and, very soon, OSX support (all things I'm too stupid to work out myself). But more importantly, with a team there will be a whole lot less release black outs moving forward.
I honestly feel ashamed of myself a lot of the time because I completely agree on the points that you are all bringing up, there is not enough releases, not enough communication, not enough online presence. For what it's worth I at least wanted to shed some light on the situation.
Thanks guys.
- Teddy
Seconded, great news on all fronts it seems.
Don't feel ashamed mate, if your software was useless noone would bother damning you for updates
Can't wait to play with some new toys when they're ready.
Thanks for the responses as well, Eric.
Thank you for the support guys.
- Teddy
I am also just curious at a planned release date for the new version. I love Quixel as a company and have used DDO since the original beta.
In regards to the next update timeline...feed your new help Red-Bull!