I'd like to get the Am subscription as a gift for my neice, who is a budding animator. How would I go about ordering it and tying it to her computer, and furthermore how would I renew it next year?

Mark Stoughton

How about:
Make a home-made gift certificate, or just buy a nice card.
Include easy ordering instructions with the card/certificate.
Enclose a $50 bill and mail it to her or her parents. Maybe on the night before Christmas her folks can download and install it and she can start animating right away.

And to truly help her make the most use of the software, send her this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Animation-Master-Com...1246&sr=8-1

all a person (the recipient of the gift) needs is the activation code and the download link- anyone can make the purchase...
you could: buy a subscription, make a gift certificate and put the activation code and download link on it, present that to her x-mas morn!

renewals will work the same way-

make sure she starts with TAOAM!

So if you had an activation key you could activate at any time right? you don't have to wait for some kind of emailed response? Like on Christmas morning... there isn't some poor guy forced to send out confirmations by hand?

-vern

The activation is totally automated an instant- you just need to be connected to the internet-

So....to continue Vern's point. Say someone bought an activation code and kept it for 6 months before using AM. How long is that subscription going to last? From which date?:

1) Purchase of the code.

OR

2) Input of code to start the AM subscription.

It must be from the time of activation, I would think.

This is great. You could buy a block of numbers and put them in Christmas crackers.

yes, it's from the time of activation, not the purchase of the code-

Or a studio could buy a block of codes and hand them out as needed.

This really is great for collaborative projects as Rodney mentioned in another thread. It makes it so easy to jump on board.
And sometimes people take "vacations" from software. Piece of cake to jump back in.

Good grief! Remember the "old days" when people complained about over seas shipping and delays in delivery?





-vern

Damn! You're right! This is going to cut my costs by over 50%. It'll be cheaper even if I buy two licences/codes. Cool.

In the past, I've bought upgrades for myself and 2 other friends. (I usually say that if they used their copy at least 25 hours last year, I'll upgrade them. Just to encourage them to keep playing with it.) As all of us are outside the US, it was $18 for shipping to 2 destinations, plus import duty. Typical costs were around CAD $355. If I do it this year, it will be CAD $150 -- less than half.

I kind of like the physical CD and knowing I can run it even if I lapse a year for subscriptions, but overall the new pricing structure will be cheaper for me even if I don't renew right away; I can always re-up any time (don't have to wait for a year boundary). Also, the laptop has problems reading the CD if it hibernates and I have to reboot, so a software lock would probably work better. Even if I get a desktop computer again some day that I would do the main rendering on, it would be the same price (minus shipping) to get 2 copies as it would be to renew for one copy under the old plan. So overall, the new arrangement seems like it would probably be better all around.