[LINK] a bit of a GST and online buying tangent

Andrew Thornton secretelf77 at gmail.com
Thu Nov 28 11:35:45 AEDT 2013



                    As a bit of a curious tangent, I buy 3D software 
online. I've found this to be a curious market in a few ways.

                    One, I like to render stuff. For anyone who's not 
into 3D stuff, rendering is taking a flat 3D approximation of a shape or 
scene, such as a CAD creation, and making it into a lifelike 3D picture. 
Now, there are hundreds of render tools [often called render engines]. 
Some are free. Some are commercial. One of the best commercial renderers 
is called V Ray. You can't get it online here at all!! There is some 
weird licence-geo restriction that allows V Ray to be sold in the most 
obscure, tiny Caribbean islands but not here! That is bizarre. Not that 
I need it; I use Lightwave.

                   Two, there is a weird brick and mortar situation 
here. There are some brick and mortar stores that specialize in selling 
high end 3D software. One of the biggest is 
http://www.stormfx.com.au/.    Now things get weird. First, they claim 
to sell V Ray. They don't! Because they can't! Second, their site is the 
most most rank amateurish load of garbage that I have come across. I've 
bought enough 3D software etc online to probably, after more expense 
than I would care to numerate [ and yes, I buy it all legally; I've 
never pirated anything in my life] , be in the category of a 
professional buyer. If someone gave me X  dollars and gave me Y time to 
buy 3D software I would know what I was doing. Now, I already have 
things like Z Brush. I bought that from the pixologic site online ages 
ago. But for the heck of it I pretended to buy it from Stormfx. The site 
runs me around in circles. Then it does the following:

                 IT ASKS ME FOR A QUOTE.

                Is this Monty Python? Oh man. Here we have an online 
site trying to be some sort of wackjobbed pseudo brick and mortaresque 
emporium/store. Who the heck wants or needs a quote on Z brush??????? 
You just go to the pixologic site and buy the jolly thing.

               Oh man. If stormfx is typical of online selling then we 
are still in 1995. That is the funniest thing that I have come across. 
That's like someone selling gramophones at a massive mark up.

              We can't make clickfrenzy happen. GST being added to 
online overseas purchases below 1000 bucks. Welcome to the madness. Put 
your hands on your hips. Turn to the ri-ri -ri-right. Let's do the 
timewarp again. Da da da dah dum.


           Andrew

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