T-Splines for Rhino end of life

Yes, that’s correct.

It was inevitable really as soon as Autodesk bought up T-Splines and VSR, I’m just surprised that it has taken so long. It makes sense from a business perspective - why would you continue to sell software that adds propriety functionality to a competitor’s product?

If they are hoping to get Rhino/VSR customers to switch to Alias, their pricing model pretty much rules that out I would guess. They used to cater for smaller customers with Alias Design Studio but not any more. Perhaps Fusion is supposed to be the alternative.

I’m just glad that I don’t rely on either plug-in to do most of my work, Rhino’s native toolset does what I need 90% of the time (the other 10% in probably user incompetence). I will miss T-Splines though - hopefully it will continue to work with Rhino 5 for a few more years yet.

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I’d be very annoyed if T-Splines stopped working… I can understand it not being serviced with more upgrades/patches etc. I don’t recall reading anything about EOL and the software ceasing to work though.

I’m guessing that Rhino 5 won’t see any development which will stop it working as we’re nearly on V6.

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AFAICT, it’s in the best interest of AD to keep it working on RH5 as long as possible and by doing that tying users to that Rhino version and making them think twice about upgrading to RH6.

Good news for me, although the devil is in the details … “For most Rhino 5 users.” Otherwise, I am mostly encouraged.

For most Rhino 5 users, nothing will change. You will still be able to use your installed software without interruption as long as you want, and in most cases you can even install and activate your software on new machines.

and in the FAQ:

Customers with T-Splines v 3.5 or later will be able to activate licenses on new machines indefinitely.

and

Customers with T-Splines v 3.4 or earlier will be able to activate license on a new machine until July 19, 2018.

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I have T-Splines v3.4. It was mentioned that the licence server is different to that for v4 and it may not be maintained. Hopefully that won’t be the case.

I don’t know what McNeel’s upgrade policy is; can you continue to run a previous version of Rhino and the latest if you upgrade? Hopefully you can so when v6 arrives I’ll still be able to use v5 for T-Splines.

Thanks, Dave. That answers the question of how long I can activate a licence. Hopefully Rhino’s native sub-d tools will be on the way by the time T-Splines finally expires for me and other v3.4 users.

I wonder if they’ll be doing cheap upgrades to v4?

Does this mean the McNeel can now take a look at what VSR had to offer Rhino users and start incorporating that functionality into V6? Its not like they would be stepping on the toes of any plug-in developers at this point.

Dan

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At this point I’m not sure anymore either :blush:

There was a long discussion about this at the start of this year which started out saying that if you upgraded to RH6 you wouldn’t be able to install RH5 on a new PC anymore (you could still be running R1 - R5 on that same 'puter, just not install that on a new one). During the course of that discussion that stance might have changed (I didn’t read all of it again now) but perhaps now with the ability to log into Rhino to manage licenses on any hardware across the globe, all that might be water under the bridge anyway. @brian?

Thanks for the link - an interesting discussion that I was totally unaware of. It sounds like we’ll be ok to have v5 and v6 on the same machine with a single licence, that’s what the mood music sounds like to me. Be good to have it confirmed.

Agreed.

I’d like to see a toggle between a ‘Nurbs’ mode and a ‘Bezier Only’ mode, plus a sub-d nurbs solution.

But then McNeel would have to increase the price of Rhino to 20k GBP to match Alias and ICEM!

The main thrust is this:

If you buy Rhino 4, then upgrade to Rhino 5, then Rhino 6, you do not have three licenses to use by three different people. You still have one. Which version you run is up to you.

If you’d like to buy more licenses of an old version of Rhino to use old plug-ins, we can help you with that. We don’t have infrastructure to support “downgrades” at this point, so if you wanted to later upgrade to the current version, you’d need to pay for that upgrade.

I think the pool of developers for VSR Shape were extremely skilled and specialised from what I’ve read and that was one of the reasons that AutoDesk got so interested in acquiring it. So it’s not just a case of not stepping on toes - people with the knowledge needed may not be available.

I was also amazed (I mean really amazed) how few licenses of VSR Shape for Rhino were sold when I found out a few weeks ago. It does call into question whether the time, effort and expense of developing such a tool is really worth it.

At least we know where we now stand with AutoDesk and End of Life for ‘their’ plugins. From Mcneel’s perspective, perhaps ensuring ease of use when making the V5-V6 round trip would be pertinent, in the short term at least? For example, are T-Splines hosed when taking files into V6?

Hi Matt,

That sounds intriguing, is it a public knowledge? I was always wondering how working on Rhino add-ons could be a primary business and the time/effort spent on developing the tools could pay off. Surely there is at least some plugins that become successful in that area.

cheers,

–jarek

I know Michael is still present on this forum, so he could probably elaborate on the effort it took to develop VSR.

Does anyone know how Rhino and Fusion work together? Is it feasible to start a model in Rhino, send it to Fusion for t-splines or VSR, then send it back to Rhino? I’m think about how Rhino and SpaceClaim work well together. I wonder if it’s possible with Fusion?

Dan

Hi Brian, not sure if I’m following along right but, a question. If I upgrade to V6 from V5 , will V5 be unusable ? Thanks— Mark

No. You’ll still be able to use both - but you still only own one license after upgrading, and the license agreement stipulations about concurrent use apply across all versions you’ve got.

Thanks for the clarification, Brian. That sounds like the answer I wanted to hear: I can still use v5 when needed if I upgrade to v6. I fully understand that I only have one licence and can only use one copy of Rhino, regardless of version (I don’t have anybody else to use it anyway :slight_smile:).

Hi @DanBayn you can import .3Dm files into fusion.

Export is limited though.

VSR technology is in Alias, not Fusion 360, according to the T-Splines site information.

That does sound intriguing.

The relatively high cost of VSR must’ve been a factor in low take up, also confusion over what it actually did (maybe that was just me). I only got a basic grasp of how powerful it was after being directed to some YouTube demos earlier this year. If I’d seen them three or four years ago I may’ve taken the plunge, although I may not have had the knowledge to understand how powerful it was back then.

I’m sure the buy out didn’t help sales either. I expect many potential buyers were in the same position as me - reluctant to spend money on a plug in with an uncertain future. However, if Autodesk were to repeat that 70% off sale in the coming weeks I would be sorely tempted, knowing that Rhino v5 will still be available.