L8 Announces 2019 Previz Design Challenge
Kiev-based lighting design and previz software company L8, led by veteran software developer Dmitriy Giventar, announced a new opportunity for designers to showcase their work and skills last month.
For the entire month of March, L8 is giving users the opportunity to try out the company’s L8 previz software at no charge — up to 512 channels. A dongle-less free version of the software suite was expected to be available for download from starting on March 1, 2019.
Officially, this opportunity was to get people to put forth their best design work in L8 and showcase it for the world — but those looking to try out L8 had a whole month to make that happen.
A Showcase in Frankfurt
L8 will be exhibiting at Prolight+Sound Show in Frankfurt, Germany, from April 2-5 at booth B58 in Hall 12.1 in the Messe Frankfurt Convention Center. On Thursday, April 4, L8 will honor the winners of the first L8 design challenge.
Along with the opportunity to be seen on the European stage with this year’s competition, the winners of the L8 challenge will be awarded prizes including licenses of the L8 software suites. First Prize is a full license of Unlimited L8, which retails at just below $8,500 and features the gamut of everything L8 has to offer — up to 2,000 fixtures, 255 Art-Net/sACN universes, Hog 4 universes and MA-NET universes. Second place finalists in the competition will be awarded a license of Trace L8, which retails at just under $3,200 and features up to 512 fixtures, still with 255 Art-Net, sACN, Hog 4, and MA-NET universes. Third place prize is the Media L8 license, retailing at just over $1,500 and still features up to 512 fixtures per project, 255 universes. (It’s positioned as the first package in the line that gets you started using video elements in your designs through the suite.) Other prizes include the entry level version of L8, called NET L8, which has a retail price tag of just over $1,000. It still provides for 512 fixtures per project, but limits the user on media and video elements. The NET version of L8 still features high quality video shots and show control playback.
“This year’s challenge is for everyone,” says Giventar. “On March 1, we will publish a special version on the website which is equal to the NET license of the L8 software, but works for a month free of charge so anyone can create a project up to 512 fixtures using Art-Net or sACN for a patch.”
New Pricing Structure
L8 has a new pricing structure that will allow users to upgrade their particular license for anything under the Unlimited version, which includes all features, for a yearly fee. Users can upgrade from the NET version of L8 to the Unlimited version, for example, which is ostensibly an upgrade from the smallest version of the suite to the largest, for just over $1,500 for one year. A one-year Media version to Unlimited version upgrade runs the user around $1,380, and a one-year upgrade from Trace L8 to Unlimited is just over $1,000.
“We offer the software licenses in the four formats, NET, Media, Trace, and Unlimited, without a yearly fee,” says Giventar. “We are offering upgrades from one product level to another, and Feature Pack upgrades to assist users who might need the features of a higher version of the software for a production or project while being an owner of another version.”
For more information, go to www.L8.ltd.
