How large and obtrusive is the watermark in the student version of the software? Is this something I could use to produce work that I can pin up for reviews, or will my boards be ruined by the watermark?
I understand that as a company you want to protect your intellectual property from being used commercially. However you do request evidence of my status as student.
Here's my problem, I'm a first semester graduate architecture student, and each piece of software I learn is a significant learning curve and investment of time. I am really interested in VW as a piece of software, however I don't have several $K to buy software at the moment. Although I get the student software for a year, it's worthless to me if I can't produce work that I can pin up in a review. I prefer the platform and user interface of VW over Revit, but I will have to learn and use Revit instead because they give me the tools I need to produce work as a student for my classes.
I think you have a fantastic product, but if you want a generation of architects, who are exclusively trained to produce architecture on the computer to utilize your software as one of the tools in their toolboxes, then you have to open the software up to students in a more competitive way. It would also be worth considering having an option to pay for VW on a subscription instead of a one off huge fee. I'd have to get a credit card or two to purchase VW right now.
Autodesk is not the best, but they have positioned themselves to be the tools everyone is familiar with, because of their free full student licensing.
Even though I want to be a VW user, it seems to me at the moment that it would be next to impossible for me to justify putting in the time to learn the software to just have products I can't use for my work as a student. I can't imagine I'm the only person who feels this way.
best,
Aaron
