I’ve heard a lot about V2 of the app, and I was wondering how that is going to work. Is the plan to release a major update every year or two like some apps do? Or is V2 many years out? I love this app, and am very happy with the direction it’s heading! I really appreciate the developers work on this, he’s already done amazing work in a very short amount of time! 
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Hey! Thank you for supporting Valence. Currently I’m still working on stability (fixing crashes) and quality of life improvements for version 1:
- Support for texture coordinate & other varying mesh attributes (per vertex or face color)
- Proper mesh proxies for future modifiers
- Rendering speed for massive meshes
- Proper lasso selection (without selecting occluded components)
- Reworking the performance for the Context Panel
- Bridging edge loops
- Fixing all issues with Swift 6 & iOS 18
- More robust mesh algorithms (merge vertices)
- Localization (Chinese)
- Configurable Pencil vs Touch Controls
- Vertex & Edge Slide
Version 2 is potentially many years out (I had planned on releasing it in march on 2025, but its looking like 2026 now). Currently, Valence is not making enough money to support full-time development. Valence 3D, like Nomad is a one man show. I’ve been working on Valence 1 day a week and freelancing the others days to support myself. The market will decide whether Valence lives on. In the mean time, I’m doing my best to improve it and keep the dream of hard-surface polygon modeling alive on iPad & iPhone.
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From everything I’ve learned so far from version 1, the only way version 2 will ever come out and survive in the market and be maintained is if users are willing to pay for a subscription for version 2.
From what I’ve gathered so far, users are not willing to pay for a subscription for Valence. Potential users are not even willing to pay $30 for Valence. So the future of this app is very uncertain.
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If you are a Valence user, please let me know if you’d be willing to support Valence development for $60/year.
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I generally don’t like subscriptions, but I would probably do a $60 a year subscription for this app! It offers a lot of functionality I can’t get in any other cheaper or single-purchase apps. . Also, if there’s another way to support you, I’m sure some of us users would be willing to help support it beyond a subscription as well. I really want this app to succeed, because there’s nothing else I’ve found that has the same level of functionality I need that’s also affordable.
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I really appreciate all that. I love working on it and really want to find a way to go full-time to take it to the next level.
In terms of support, I think the easiest thing for me to do would be to offer in an app support option that would essentially be the subscription for whenever version 2 features start to land.
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At the current iteration, subscription will kill momentum. Paid upgrade would probably be more acceptable. Ime, if you need more funding, you can start a kickstarter, etc. We went the indiegogo route back then.
Focus on the modelling toolset. The fancy stuff like rendering, new pencil features are welcome but not priority. 3d printing is a growing market that didn’t exist before. Many people buy affordable printers and create their stuff. They don’t need rendering or fancy stuff. They need a solid modelling app.
Sometimes developers go on a direction that probably takes a huge amount of time and resources. It’s a good idea to have a voting system where people can vote for the features they need.
3Dcoat(3dbrush) do this online voting since the early days and Andrew works on these features. Users are happy to upgrade of course because the direction is what the majority of what users need.
Just my 2 cents.
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Hey, I signed up just to give an answer to this question haha
Short answer, yes I would absolutely pay that subscription (probably even more) if it meant continued development and support for Valence.
Long answer, everyone has their opinions and perspectives (and I don’t envy the person having to make sense of it all) but I want to contextualize mine: I’ve been doing 3D for the past 15 years and Valence is so close to being my favorite tool yet. It’s intuitive, it’s fast, the UI is gorgeous, it supports the pencil and keyboard and anything I hook up to my iPad —so much good stuff. Valence+Nomad is a combo with such amazing creative potential.
I’m not a regular user though, because it’s missing functionality that I need in my day-to-day. UVs is the big one for me personally, I’m sure the list of feature requests is a mile long and everybody wants something different. But the bottom line is that I want to use this as a professional tool, and I’m willing to pay a professional price for it — but it needs to do the things I need it to do! I’m not trying to be a hard-ass or anything, it’s just a pragmatic perspective from someone who needs more than something to tinker with.
I’ve tried Uniform, which is more feature-rich, but the workflow is so clunky and awkward and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Valence has taste and polish; the things it does, it does really well. I’m just so excited (and impatient) for the list of things it does to get longer hahaha
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I’ve been using Blender for more than five years and when I saw Valence I thought great. I could use my iPad on the way to work on the train and not carry my laptop back and forth. But I would have to say ‘Hard Pass’ on subscriptions in any form. I bought Valence as it was or I was hoping it would turn into an alternative to Blender for the iPad. I thought about it for a few days before even purchasing it as it was twice the cost of Nomad which is more mature of an application but took a shot.
I could see say if you purchase v1 you get all the updates for v1. Once it goes to v2 you purchase the upgrade. Not the full cost but say 50% of the original cost.
It would suck if it went subscription based. It has great potential.
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I am not a developer, so I don’t know all of the considerations that go into this, but I do think I may have an idea that would help and offer the best of both worlds. You could preserve the single-purchase model (which many in this community prefer over subscriptions), but have an optional subscription model in addition that offers some extra perks. Maybe subscribers get additional support services as you mentioned before. Maybe they get a few extra advanced features. But then people can choose to stick with single-purchase, or choose to go subscription. You could also consider making it easy to tip you, or donate. I know I would be happy to try to help fund you as much as I can. I’m generally averse to subscriptions, but as I said, I would happily consider a subscription for this app if it keeps it around. But I think a lot of people in this community will not be ok with a subscription, so you may want to keep both models in place. Also, perhaps there could be paid for content within the app? I don’t know what kind of content this would be, I know Nomad Sculpt recently added a paid for tool. Again, I’m not a developer, so I don’t know all of what goes into this, and I know you know better how to work this, but these are just some of my thoughts and suggestions.
I’d be willing to pay for a low-cost subscription (around 50 a year) or pay $30 for each whole-number version. Nobody expects you to continue developing the app for free. I have no idea how Procreate does it.
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Like the app so far and willing to pay for V2 Update (whole # updates). Not a Subscription fan as it usually is implemented such that the user can not continue to use what he has already paid for. For example, used to be a Sketchup user since day 1 until it went subscription with few improvements/features to justify it.
As an alternative a Yearly subscription is ok if the software app the user has already paid for still works, but no new updates/support are available without yearly fee.
Agree with some other comments, when resource limited voting for feature development would inform you of features/development users are willing to pay for.
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A pricing model like Affinity might be a good idea. Raise the price to $60 and then charge again for major releases. You could even create a multi tier pricing model with keeping the previous version available for a reduced price as an introductory version.
A subscription model would definitely alienate many users simply because their work is held hostage if they stop paying. For indie modelers who just use the app occasionally, having the ability to buy and own it is a huge advantage.
Another alternative is something we’ve seen recently in Nomad where the new major feature is an in app purchase.
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“charge again for major releases” IMHO this works well ONLY if the users are involved in what features are implemented in the next major release. Based on experience with other commercial software that went subscription, some said it was because not enough users upgraded to the next version. Perhaps that was also a result of the users having no ability to express their choice for new features to be implemented (no value for some users).
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I second this. . I’d be willing to pay a $60 a year subscription, but I would be worried about a subscription system alienating a lot of others unless it was a separate option in addition to a single-purchase option. I think in app purchases and a single purchase for a higher price tier with new versions would also be a good way to support development.
Annual maintenance like 3dcoat, modo wherein after a year the user stops getting updates BUT does not get locked out of the app. That’s the one thing that really turns me off subscription. I mean why can’t I open the app anymore? That’s a big issue for me.
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