But I got to get my stonemason fix. So wanna be a cowboy Gotta git. i worked on some western scenes ages ago but never went anywhere. I have a bunch of odd freebie western building. With stonemason's The Streets Of The Wild West as the center I can build a good sized town one full of stories and action.

About made up my mind to sub C4D. Need to move on from carrara, But still a few dozens scenes to finish up in carrara.

:) Yes. Dealing with DAZ is like the old Peanuts cartoons with Charlie Brown and the football. Except sometimes you get what you want! Usually after a work around, but hey, I am not going to spend any more money on 3D until I beef up my general art skills. Good luck with your old west scenes, anything with Stonemason in it is already a notch up from the run-of-the-mill objects. Enjoy.

Yeah Stan

I have had my battles with Daz and have kind of settled into a Like/Hate relationship.

I do get good deals from time to time. As long as I stay out of the forums...

Re: Westerns Hopefully, you were able to take advantage of the 70% off sale they had a few days back. Stonemasons stuff was included. I have all but maybe a half page of his stuff. Chipping away at it each sale.

If you REALLY want a big western town, I bought Deadstone here at Rendo. If you add that to Stonemasons set, you'll be ready to go full John Wayne! https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/i13-deadstone/104727/

Re: C4D I have an older version of it (pre subscription). It might not be a bad idea to try eBay to find an older version to buy rather than to sub. Take your time & learn the guts of the software before sinking cash on a sub.

I'm wanting to move to the newest builds. C4D vanilla is just $60 a month. Add GPU rendering and it's $82. And Studio has a C4D exporter. Thing is, all CG apps are Maxon. Don't think any of them offer an option to buy any more.

I had a bunch of freebies that look good... from down the street lol Perfect back ground fill. Plus DAZ's barn, and old west saloon; with interior. That is a nice set, wish listed it. With that I'd have something the size of Tomb stone. But this has turned in to an $$$$ winter; hard freeze for 2 weeks, property tax, Tags for my Jeep, $750 mechanic bill to fix Jeep lol Be a while before I have any free cash lol But some ting that massive could spawn many scenes.

Hi manleystanley. My user name should really be 'I'm posting this but won't be around for long...' I'm in the habit of checking forums late at night before bed.

Anyway, I like Carrara a lot but I also use Poser and Reallusion's Iclone. DAZ Studio, I seldom use but I can't argue with the quality of DAZ's figures and content.

Thinking about your subscription plan for Cinema 4d, I can't help seeing the cons to the plan rather than the pros. The obvious drawback is the need to keep paying monthly - which could be OK but there is the risk that it might become unaffordable and then all your work is lost to you.

One year of the fees you mentioned could go a good way to beefing up hardware. I have only an i5 processor and a GTX 750ti and that would certainly be the case for me.

Another year of those fees would get you well on your way to having a wealth of Reallusion software. (I haven't done the exact sums - there are always deals and bundles.

In case you haven't checked it out before, the animation software is Iclone which comes with free character creator and a certain amount of content. To be of much use, however, it is really advisable to pay for the professional character creator. With that you could use all your DAZ and V4/M4 figures in Iclone for stills and animation. You could export these with animation to Carrara. Character creator has morph add-ons to enable endless variation in character creation. You could also bring in clothing items and apply physx soft-cloth properties.

Iclone's renders are generally considered inferior by those looking for DAZ Iray realism but they can still be very respectable in the right hands Also Iclone has an Iray plugin for stills). Reallusion actively encourages and facilitates an export pipeline to the Unreal engine, where scenery and settings are up there with the best. I personally haven't looked into Unreal yet but but I could bet that fantastic Wild West scenery would be available.

With Reallusion, good hardware is necessary and the costs of things really do add up if you want everything. The Iclone community are not primarily focussed on cute females but on characters of all kinds for film-making. Some forum members are serious about westerns, some medieval, some contemporary, some sci-fi. The motion capture content is increasing all the time and is VERY good. Like I said, I can get it working in Carrara as exported .fbx (and that is starting from a morphed, Genesis 8 exported from DAZ Studio).

Lastly, anyone can offer their creations on one of the Reallusion stores. (Initially items are sold for 'DA Points' which can be used like currency to buy other members' offerings. Serious, proven, creators get to sell for real money).

Nothing I'm saying is anti-Carrara and items sold at Renderosity for DAZ studio at least can be used in this pipeline.

(I hope this helps and I'll say Goodnight!)

This is only a 'thumbnail' from a test animation in Iclone with two figures derived from Genesis 8.

It isn't much of a picture but it shows coloured lights and the mist and waterfall were applied in a couple of mouse-clicks and were previewed in real time. The animations are applied in moments.

Stan

I remember why I hate Daz.

It's the bloody censorship! There was a decent conversation going on about the rising costs and how some of us are dealing with it.

Of COURSE the thread gets locked!

I should learn my lesson & stay out of there, unless I want to do some cheerleading for Daz.

Now why did I get banned from DAZ 3 times?? hmmmmm Aught to start a IhateDAZ discord lol But for me you know I hate DAZ for what they did to carrara.

Digging throw my props/architecture folder/runtime I found I have all of DAZ's old west buildings with interiors, not just the saloon. Got enough for a lengthy animation if I had the horse animations.

Stan

I was talking with some people (in "real life") about something, I wonder what your take might be.

Daz royally screwed up the way they handled Carrara, but maybe they couldn't technologically have made Genesis 7 & 8 work. Maybe dForce wouldn't be possible without significant overhaul of Carrara.

What if Daz had allowed Carrara to follow more closely after Poser?

As far as I know, Poser can handle everything up to Genesis 6 (same as Carrara). Maybe they could have allowed Carrara to follow Poser's course of development.

I was able to use Poser people in Carrara natively without any problems. I can STILL use Poser buildings, cars & other props being made NOW for Poser in Carrara.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to add weight mapping, cloth room (so we could use Poser dynamic cloth) and make sure newer Poser figures & clothes would work in Carrara?

I doubt Daz would do anything about this, but we had a pretty good conversation about this and I'm curious to know what you think about it.

Like to see all of carrara's import formats updated Poser and Studio. As well as the supposed universal formats. Wish I could have found my purches info for Poser 5/6 so I could have upgraded to 10 when it was available. Been fairly cheap to upgrade over buy. But I used poser for prep work for carrara till I started using DAZ content. Then I started using Studio to fix and convert content as well as use the Optitex clothing. Actually for a very short time Studio and Cararra played quit well together.

But hell, I still spend hours almost daily working with old scenes and old DAZ content in carrara. Be real nice if DAZ would sell cararra to some one that would and could work with it. But DAZ is not going to hand a tool to a possible competitor. .

Honestly can't remember how I was doing all the clothing and hair/prop converting in Studio. Just proof if you don't use it you lose it. I actually added the A4 morph of V4 to the clothing converter in Studio so I could use red vipers A4 clothes on Genesis.

The last Poser I bought was Poser 7. For some reason I was able to buy it from Daz way back in 2009.

I had purchased Poser2 -7. I realised that I really had NO aptitude for Poser. Lol.

I had such a hard time doing ANYTHING in the software. I wish I could've made it work for me.

Carrara was such a breath of fresh air. I still love working with it for my animations.

You were pretty good with the Optitex clothing. I never used it and never dreamed of animating with it.

It was easy to work with in Studio, the problem was run time, calculations took ages. Hell I got the entire Bettie Page clothing collection. But it has been lost over time. I still play with draping in carrara using the soft cloth bullet physics.

I bought Poser 11 a while back. Haven't used it. I still prefer Carrara's built in modeling room and other features. But I did watch a webinar by the people developing Poser. They had some ambitious plans. If the Poser people succeed I might upgrade again and dive in, but for the moment Poser just takes up room on my hard drive.

Autofit quit working in carrara so I had to install DAZ central to reinstall Studio, to get it working again. I HATE DAZ.

manleystanley posted at 11:53PM Sun, 21 March 2021 - #4415214

Autofit quit working in carrara so I had to install DAZ central to reinstall Studio, to get it working again. I HATE DAZ.

You needed Daz Central to install Daz Studio??? The last build I installed was Daz 4.9, didn't need Central.

My computer is "airgapped" anyway(not able to connect to internet) so I can't use software that has to connect online.

P.S. You mentioned wishing you had bought Poser 10? Well, they're having a sale for Poser 11 right now here at Rendo. If you like it you can upgrade to Poser 12.

No place on the DAZ store to download the newest version of Studio.

Yesterday I bought he legacy shapes for G2 so the clothing converting could mangle some pretty Laura dresses. Worked yesterday, not today though.

Oh look, DAZ wants me to log in to DAZ central to use Studio. Naa I don't mind big brother DAZ spying on everything I do on my comp.

I hate DAZ. They are single handedly ruining the CG hobby for everyone.

Hey Stan You don't need Daz Central to use or even download DS 4.15

Just go to your "product library" in your account. Then in the search type "Daz Studio 4.x"

You'll see a bunch of options to download daz 4.15 plus any of the supplements, etc

I now call DS my "DAZ Studio Content Exporter Utility" (DSCEU (tm) :^).

I'm not yet able to throw the good DAZ PAs out with the DAZ Inc. bathwater, but there's definitely no warm-fuzzy going on (and much less spending), and the certainty that I'll never ever mention the DAZ name or products with respect to any of my work, or to those that would ask about how to get into hobby/industry (especially the educational institutions I have cause to frequent). That endorsement/acknowledgment ship has long since sailed.

That said, re: the logistics of the DAZ store 'silo' - you can download any/all current products that you own via your web-based product library interface, and the most current DS release has always been available as both EXEs and DIM zipfiles (download and save both versions at each formal release so you can roll back to working versions, as the new versions invariably break some older unsupported or non-updated tool/script/plugin you've come to rely on...). Beta DS versions (public) only come in DIM zip format for DIM install. I don't do DAZ-Central or Connect silliness at all, so maybe you can find a way to make those 'tools' work for you.

Note that some of the standalone utilities that you might purchase at the DAZ store can only be acquired via manual download through your web product library interface. Even the DIM downloader doesn't pull over some of these. I also recommend downloading and saving the zip installers offline, as occasionally the updates don't just 'fix' problems or add improvements, but they will actually remove or reduce functions that were available in previous release zipfiles - e.g. at one point the free genesis 1 installer was released with genitals and a follow-on DIM update overwrote those installer (on user's machines) with an updated version without that 'feature'. I also found a discrepancy between my purchased products and their listing in my product library (Gn1 Ethnic Asian), where I knew I had purchased it, but it was not available in my library. I am fairly certain that this was a simple systemic error, as the bad PR that would result from DAZ 'sneaking' your products away would be far more damaging to their already souring reputation than any gain from removing Genesis1 products from user's libraries, etc. Sloppy, not evil, but it certainly makes one wonder how much 'sloppy' we're missing...

Per Wendy, the serial number management of your account is subject to questionable accuracy as well, so I always bring up that page in my web interface and 'save page as...' a PDF or 'web-page-complete' from my browser in a dated file (e.g. DAZ_Serials_20210505.pdf, etc.). You might also save the EULA at each S/N save as well since you likely won't be able to get the previous copy of the license that you actually purchased your items under after they update the license terms, unless you want to get lawyers involved - and even DAZ knows that any current EULA updates are toilet-paper relative to your older purchase agreement terms, assuming you've downloaded and saved the original installers right when you've purchased the items. They won't act as if this is the case, as why the heck would they? I wouldn't, heh.

Remember that DAZ Inc. is a company, not your friend, nor your enemy. Believing that any company would behave in anything but their own better-interest is simply foolish, regardless the so-called 'goodwill' that their marketing and product brochures would imply. BTW, Rendo is also a company and is subject to the same tensions, but to my experience, is far more pragmatic and refreshing in their behavior (except their current Poser "phone-home" requirement. sigh - never again...).

best, --ms

Daz Central is a big basket of bad news. I use DIM for a lot of my Daz stuff and it's ok; but I load a lot of stuff manually, too.

DIM to download everything it can/will, web product lib for the rest, and I use DIM to install plugins/program elements only, as some contain special scripts that make the manual approach less certain. All of my content is manually managed via zips/scripts.

DIM has a couple of handy functions, but I generally avoid tools that 'help me' by assuming I'm a data-management ignoramus. Many non-geeky folks need that help and insulation, which is fine, I suppose.

When the 'help' gets in the way of my preferred approach... I usually work around the 'help'. To be fair, DIM is a pretty decent hybrid of help/control, but my content re-org needs are beyond the scope of the available tools, and that's as much my problem as any vendor's.

They can keep the rest of their 'help' (DAZ Central/Connect) - I pay for all of my (non-freebie) data and reject DRM of any kind under the assumption it will someday (20years?) become obsolete, and my data will go with it... It's occurred already (bankrupt and purchased companies). If it ain't in my paws, it's a rental... and I don't rent - software or content.

2c,

--ms

Remember that DAZ Inc. is a company, not your friend, nor your enemy. Believing that any company would behave in anything but their own better-interest is simply foolish, >regardless the so-called 'goodwill' that their >marketing and product brochures would imply.

They are also keenly aware that most of the user base is hopelesslly addicted to thier products despite any righteous bluster/threats to "leave" being posted repeatedly in that Dumpster fire of a thread Announcing Daz's expansion into the NFT/Cryptocoin based ponzi scheme.

Daz obviously knows who is still buying and who is not.

I am banned from posting in their forums for posting a link to thier "Tafi" Unity store where they have made one last desparate attempt to toss Content against the game dev wall to see if anything sticks.

others have posted multiple links to that Unity store replete with unfounded speculation about the direction of the Company yet they remain

Alas I have not bought any daz content in the several years since I learn to model My own and have migrated completely to the Reallusion/CC3/Blender Eco system. and they stated so bluntly in their Email informing me of my "Pre-moderation" status (AKA banishment)

No loss for me but most of the user base are a captive demographic and Daz knows it.

"... most of the user base are a captive demographic and Daz knows it."

and our culture celebrates the response to that addiction - "for the win..."

I wince at the possible manifestations of the inevitable comeuppance for this collective short-thinking behavioral trend across our culture and society. It makes perfect sense and yet it's incredibly self-destructive. The amoebas eventually run out of sugar in their petri-dish.

To me, DAZ is simply an insignificant but representative symptom of an ongoing and exponentiating trend.

Wolf, your general response is, to my thinking, the only viable response: minimize dependencies in all domains, 3D not-withstanding. This concept terrifies the cultural opium dealers.

The larger percentage of our culture is conditioned for so called 'instant gratification' be it amazon prime or tik-toc - in a world where the non-emotional forces of evolution have no such need or interest.

I know where I'm placing my bets, hopefully as a spectator, out of reach of the hardly fictitious 'borg'.

So I'm not worried - I bailed out my part of the Titanic.

best, --ms

So here's the thing: I don't hate Daz. I don't love everything they do (cough NFTs cough), but I like a lot of the content I've bought from them and appreciate the freebies. It's a weird thing. In some ways, I'm the one Wolf takes joy in looking down upon. It's ok. Within its envelope, DS is a decent program. I've avoided a lot of problems by camping on version 4.10. I'm not embarrassed by the results I've got from it, and I've seen other people doing good work with it as well.

It would be nice if Daz could work on Carrara a bit. They can't.They've let too much time pass and have no momentum for Carrara. It would be tough to get anything going with it. Plus, their hands are full solving Mac and Iray evolution problems in DS. That's not even considering whatever they're doing for DS5 and oft-rumored G9 figures.

Here's what amazes me: As a creative pursuit, 3D is objectively hard. There is a lot to know and do in order to make good 3D work. And yet, there are all these people doing that as a hobby and as a way to complete commercial projects! It's not just DS. It's all the programs. If off-the-shelf content helps people to do that, then I'd say Daz and Rendo and other marketplaces are filling a need. And anyone who wants to can put together some work and become a vendor.

If some people are addicted to buying content, that's on them. There is a lot of good work out there. And as far as the market is concerned, those people are a feature, not a bug. And for the vendors who make their living from people like that, there is no reason to complain.

I could be babbling, but I think these are salient points.

A lot to parse, but essentially the same reason I don't hate DAZ in the sense of the OP.

Rather, like most places in my life, I pragmatically consider them a resource to serve my needs, not a 'relationship' with any sense of win-win (I have those too, just not with DAZ). I'm unapologetic-ally opportunistic. Everyone else is inherently opportunistic as well, but far too many seem to fall-in with the premise that that's somehow a bad thing. I assert that managed opportunism is the only reason for our continued success as a species. I only see opportunism as (arguably) bad when one's success is at the direct expense of another or at the cost of a better outcome over time. Such strategies are far more usual/natural than not - in a world of limited resources.

Deception and dishonesty are my red-flag symptoms of bad players, so I work to study agenda, walk-the-talk, and reliability in my interactions, and I act accordingly - doing so with very little malice, regardless the players and their strategies. What is, is - my game is navigation of reality, not the masking or 'repairing' of it.

I do have a visceral emotional distaste for the arbitrary and auditably disingenuous forum mods at DAZ. I'm truly impressed at the actions and beliefs that I've witnessed in their efforts to defend the often dysfunctional tribal core called DAZ. That they do what they do doesn't generally surprise me, as I believe that their agenda is completely sound (defense of the tribe), but that they believe their approach is actually productive and effective over the long-term indicates that a very different lens of the world is in place. Evolution over time will determine whose lenses are less myopic. Remember myspace, altavista, and soon-to-be facebook and twitter? The key players have long-since left, the rest of the crew and passengers just don't know it yet, heh. These things take time. My advice is not to waste too much engaging the silliness, once you realize the waste that it is.

Much like my high-regard for many of the PAs vs the brokerage, I continue to engage (at a much much lesser rate) the worthwhile forum people (e.g. Dart) that happen to take virtual residence in a neighborhood managed by an arguably 'interesting' governing board. But I'm quite comfortable that the exodus of most of the brightest bulbs in the crew is not random happen-stance. rah rah DAZ. And the forum mods seem not to notice, or perhaps have been told not to worry about it. Enough new blood to keep the ship afloat, perhaps? I dunno. They have the stats, but ... they can't ignore those brilliant and generous folks that are, for some reason, "no longer there" - not really. As I said, it's the few remaining folks of that caliber that draw me there - else, why show up - to chat with the mods and 12 new users that can't get DAZ Central to work on their D: drive? Don't think so.

re: Wolf and "looking down on 'us'" - I would certainly like to be good enough with 3D-mesh/texture tools to roll-my-own meshery as Wolf does so well, but I think I get a better personal return on a 75% off philw product that saves me those hours and probably is better than what I would have created anyway. I think Wolf is less 'snubbing' folks as he's indicating that we're probably far more able to roll-our-own than we believe, and he probably finds that disheartening when groups like DAZ are the recipients of our lack of adventure/exploration/initiative/(skill? :). Fair enough. Given the professed difficulty of this 3D business, I would take Wolf's posture as a frustrated compliment, rather than a slight - as being more in character with his pragmatism.

I also follow your sentiment that the PAs are distinct from the broker, and most are just doing their thing (that DAZ practically gives their stuff away on a regular basis confuses me from the PA lens, but delights me to no end, from the consumer side, heh).

A 'better' brokerage model will only occur if/when the market figures out what that actually means, but... when I can currently grab an incredible tango-alpha 3D asset for a couple of bucks from fastgrab or rendo-prime, this new market-place model has a high bar to meet, considering the barrier-to-entry for such an endeavor. Open-source dynamics are not to be ignored in this domain, it's simply going to take time. Rendo strikes me as finding a good balance in the natural tension of retail. As I've been conditioned to only buy on sale, I think Hivewire's demise was in clinging to the traditional retail model when the other brokers are effectively dumping products in the same market domain.

re: NFTs, I find it interesting that people like to buy and trade in ideas as an end-product (outside IP). I don't go there very much and I'm a cheap sucker, so paying for prestige has always struck me as being kind of odd. While surely the entire monetary transaction system we rely upon is based on trust/ideas, it's mostly a facilitation tools for transactions of ultimately useful items - even as aesthetic as art and music. But as an idea, it is more of the vehicle to resolve the escrow of promises, vs the end-point in itself. It's new territory, so I could be wrong, but I'm not one to invest in a bag that doesn't have something I want or need in it.

Like you seem to indicate, I think Carrara is developmentally done (save for a few cool plugins by its brilliant fans), and I tend to resent that DAZ isn't more forthright about their plans (or lack thereof) - but why would they shoot the golden goose (or bronze goose...) by announcing 'Carrara is Dead' or similarly 'Bryce is Dead'? integrity or respect for their user-base? Personally, I don't see it. The economics of integrity (there are some) vs economics of the shopping cart - place your bets.

That said, it's still way ahead of the curve in so many ways, and while less 'shiny', it's functionally capable and relevant, even 5+ years after the last release - in a fast moving industry. Absolutely competitive and useful - at least to folks that have invested in the framework and its operation. My 20 year old scuffed and slightly rusted hammer works just fine, regardless how much Sears might like to sell me a new one. Carrara is a solid tool, 64bit, extendable/SDK, and has access to Octane, and ... not worried, just saddened by the lack of appreciation and potential that we know is under the hood. To my thinking, Wendy and Dart have the right approach - use Carrara as the core, and use the Poser/DS/VWD/Blender/... as "plugins" to augment their mastery. That said, I would direct new users to Blender.

but ... i ramble.

best, --ms

Wow! Mindsong, I salute you. I understand what you're saying and largely agree.

I guess my view on the mods is tempered by my interactions with them. I like Jack and respect Richard (even if he does sometimes delete my posts). Cris seems nice, and I don't know Chohole well enough to say anything. If there are others, I probably don't know them, either. I know posts disappear. Some of mine have, too. I know Wolf, Wendy and others have had big problems over there. You're probably right about all that. They have a job to do.

It's unfortunate that some very competent people left their forums. I find there are still some interesting people there, not just n00bs trying to make Daz Central work. I learn quite a lot there, as I do here. Cheers to that!

Yes, Dart is pretty awesome! So are Wendy and Wolf, actually. I'll trust your interpretation on Wolf. I would like you to be right about that. Maybe he'll tell us. :)

Carara is cool. I like a lot about it, especially that it's so inviting for animation. At the same time, current versions of Blender are so competent in so many areas that it's scary! That used to be this weird little program with an impenetrable interface. Now it's an industry leader. O_o

Anyway, thanks for your replies. I appreciate that. Sometimes it's good to ramble.

ramble we do. I suppose it's cathartic to be able to actually be honest with your peers about often critical and contentious topics that directly relate to our past and current investments in our 3D tools, time, and resources - without being censored (there is no other word for it, nor is there a need for changing the language to make the censors more comfortable about their actions and choices. It is what it is, by the definition of the term). I have no space for any of them, given my belief that a well-intended but misguided ally can do far more damage to a cause than an overt adversary. When the goal morphs from honest improvement to tribal self-defense, any conversation can only go one way. rah rah DAZ. Petting the kitten while you bludgeon the puppy doesn't somehow even it all out... heh.

Re: the core source of the apparent frustration and conflict/tension?

We know better than to fool ourselves - DAZ Studio, and even a $20 PC+ deal on the full Carrara8.5 Pro product-suite, are hardly 'free'!

The 'price' to us users of any tool-chain investment is nothing compared to the commitment to that tool-chain, and I believe many folks at DAZ know this intellectually, but don't really 'get it' with respect to the levels of frustration they so consistently find need to 'disappear' in their community discussions. "Methinks thou protest too loudly..." is probably a relevant meme, and disingenuous to the new users who would expect an honest representation of the tool's established users.

You are absolutely correct in that there are a good number of very generous, sharp, and good folks that are still finding value in trading their time and insights at that other place (I was projecting on my expectations of the future there, per their policies - I'd love to be wrong). I also frequent the site for the same reason, albeit much less often, and with much less inspiration to bother to contribute - I've got a red-flag on my user-ID, so I'll skip the silly walking on eggshells game they play. To that end, I am comfortable asserting that there would be many more such people, and many more valuable (and spicy/substantial) interactions, were the TOS and mods to adopt and alternate approach. They clearly haven't reached some pain or realization threshold, and perhaps they will never need to - $5 for tango-alpha products is quite the draw.

Moving forward, I'm glad to have an alternate venue with many of the same good-hearted, creative, and sometimes bluntly honest community members here to join us.

To the OP, I have no interest in wasting any precious time or heart 'hating' DAZ, though the frustration and embarrassment they dole out can be quite real. Given my efforts to communicate my frustrations through the established channels (mods and DAZ_Steve, etc.) have been completely ignored, efforts in that direction don't seem meaningful to their economics, hence nor are they to mine or my wallet.

Ever forward, eh?, and thanks for the interesting dialog. It's nice to know we're not alone, along with some of the nuances that remind us that the simple... never really is simple, is it?

good stuff, --ms

Having tought myself to model my own clothing and environments is not some rarified skill and it only take about 30 seconds over on artstation.com to remind me of where I rank (which is nowhere TBH).

That said I was a long time content hoarder since my poser 4 days and it was only because I really needed specific marvel comic Character outfits for The "Galactus Rising" feature film that I had my modeling epiphany.

There forums are their petty fiefdom. Just like Blender artist or the Reallusion forums so they can ban who they will.

I dont hate Daz I just "dislike" Hubris & Hypocrisy.

their Hubris was assuming that as long as their young pretty white pinup girls looked better than the poser natives ( and they always did) then the professional CG community would rush over and become addicted buyers. So no need to appeal to a wider base of users with native animation tools or more male content.

That mass in flux of Autodesk & Maxon Users/buyers never happened (and still has not nor will it ever happen)

But Reallusion supported Genesis 1-2 with a special FBX import template to use Genesis figures in Iclone and for a few years Daz had a forum sticky thread on how to export genesis into Iclone 6 never being concerned about Iclone 5.5-6.5 Superior animation tools.

After G3 broke the Reallusion import template Reallusion realized the folly of chasing the golden unicorn and built Character creator, replete with their own pretty girls and an Optional IRay plugin as well.

Daz instantly burned all bridges with Reallusion not because of Realtime animation tools or IRay but because of some delusional notion that the Genesis white girls are not to be challenged in any competitive way.

Fine their market strategy is thier own business

Reallusion did not Blink but instead Further Developed CHaracter creator up to version 3 with ability to transform Any genesis 1-8 figure into a look alike Iclone native avatar (Genesis 8.1 breaks this ability but we no longer care)

Daz introduces bridge plugins for the Major 3DCCS& Game engines ,two of which are co-opted from third party plugins, in a cynical attempt to convince people that fully functional Genesis is actually portable

It clearly is not without exporting a massive amount of Data bloat that normally resides in your local Daz Data folder making it useless for animation In Maya, Blender Maxon C4D etc..more intellectually insulting Hubris.

Then they receive a megagrant from Epic games for promoting UE4 with their Exporter to UE4 at the same time Epic unveils the Metahumans.

We have all seen the metahumans.... whoops!!

FORGET ABOUT the Iclone/ CC3 Avatars!!

These Metahumans** Curb stomp Genesis in figure realism &facial animation function,** they are causing much buzz in the PROFESSIONAL CG communities while meticulously avoiding the use of early 20s Ideal BMI Chicky poo's as Click bait

Unlike the CC3 Avatars, They are not compatible with any Daz Store content.

Yet Daz allows a long running thread replete with embedded videos about the metahumans because they do not dare Alienate Epic games having taken thier free grant money... more Hypocrisy.

Dont really care about the NFT fiasco as it is Daz's money to waste not mine.

But I am amused at those canting screeds posted by the mutual validation ,moral outrage society ,whom daz is calmly allowing to stomp & Bleet like dependent children who will eventually calm down and rush to buy Genesis 9 the instant it is released.

wolf359 posted at 9:35PM Mon, 10 May 2021 - #4418954

...

I dont hate Daz I just "dislike" Hubris & Hypocrisy.

...

Could have saved me a lot of typing there :)

The rest of your commentary (industry agenda and progressions) is dead-on to my thinking too.

My current quandary is how much time/energy/skill I have in the DAZ eco-systems and how to most efficiently migrate from there into a more appropriate context, in a timely manner, while preserving the continuity of my current framework. I'm getting there. I need to figure out how to get my workflow both in and back out of the iclone tool-suite. I can only use parts of it now, but fortunately they're my favorite parts of iclone. No CC3 for me yet, as I'm probably overly cautious to pick another 3D silo that has a lot of the same agenda alignment and resulting odor of the DAZ eco-system in the air. It still may prove to be the right path, but I'm at a point I can still defer the commitment, so I'm going to leverage that time.

best, --ms

Iclone looks slick and interesting, but I lack the brainspace to address it. I put Unreal Engine in the same category. Wendy is all over that, and exploring all sorts of things including metahumans. I think it works for her because she's playing. She seems to do that without feeling overwhelmed. That's a wonderful thing!

As it is, I juggle Daz, Blender, some Carrara, and various image apps. Even though I've been using other people's assets for rendering, I spend a lot more time than I expected playing with materials, textures, lights and poses. Everything needs adjustment! I have items that would require new textures and sometimes new UV maps to make them look right. A certain number of vendors do not really understand texture mapping and material optimization. Sorry, it's true! I can't really justify doing all that work for something someone else made so I usually reach into my library and pull out a different item. I have modeling projects in progress.Some are experiments, others are not yet where I want them to be. They will be something when they emerge. Until that happens, I'm sort of wearing the mule face.

I don't share Wolf's issue with the sexy ladies. I like them a lot. I like the male figures, too. I have a lot more ladies in my library than men.

There is definitely something to the complaint about the weight of Genesis figures. People point at the G8 figures as the worst offenders, but even V4 figures can be slow to load. I may know why that is, too. It's the weight of add-on shaping and corrective morphs. Gigabytes of data! Of course that's not portable. It's a competition between on-the-fly character customization and figure optimization. Customization wins in Dazland.

To make it work in a streamlined way, you probably need a 2-stage character creation process. In the first stage, you make the character the way you want. In the second stage, you freeze, bake, and save all that into a single morph that gets bound to the rigging. After that, no more customizing. If you want to customize further, you make another figure. The effect of doing that is, you need a lot less data to support your finished figure. You're no longer carrying, checking and manipulating the data for every figure and morph pack in your library.

It seems that's what happens with metahumans. You do the customization and then you get your actual figure. Now, the big difference with metahumans is, you do the design in their web app. You don't actually get direct access to the source materials. You get a finished product you can drop into UE. And it's not clear that we end users can extend that asset like we can the Daz, Poser or Iclone figures. Those are important considerations!

For Daz, their base figures and morphs are their bread and butter; and we already downloaded them in the essentials pack. Daz has an existential obligation to protect their figures as best they can, even though it's already been pirated in places beyond their control. Reallusion has the same problems. I think Daz figures changed over time to meet the company's goals of increased realism, better posing, etc. Doing that increased figure complexity while reducing interoperability with other programs. It's win-win for them. What's interesting is, the poly count of the base figures actually decreased over time. Reliance on subdivision increased.

I'm not really trying to defend Daz in this. I'm trying to point out that maybe there are reasons things are the way they are. And I agree that some of what happens with respect to all that is troubling and troublesome.

I agree Mindsong! Ever forward :)

Torquinox posted at 2:56AM Tue, 11 May 2021 - #4418975

Iclone looks slick and interesting, but I lack the brainspace to address it. I put Unreal Engine in the same category. Wendy is all over that, and exploring all sorts of things including metahumans. I think it works for her because she's playing. She seems to do that without feeling overwhelmed. That's a wonderful thing!

As it is, I juggle Daz, Blender, some Carrara, and various image apps. Even though I've been using other people's assets for rendering, I spend a lot more time than I expected playing with materials, textures, lights and poses. Everything needs adjustment! I have items that would require new textures and sometimes new UV maps to make them look right. A certain number of vendors do not really understand texture mapping and material optimization. Sorry, it's true! I can't really justify doing all that work for something someone else made so I usually reach into my library and pull out a different item. I have modeling projects in progress.Some are experiments, others are not yet where I want them to be. They will be something when they emerge. Until that happens, I'm sort of wearing the mule face.

I don't share Wolf's issue with the sexy ladies. I like them a lot. I like the male figures, too. I have a lot more ladies in my library than men.

There is definitely something to the complaint about the weight of Genesis figures. People point at the G8 figures as the worst offenders, but even V4 figures can be slow to load. I may know why that is, too. It's the weight of add-on shaping and corrective morphs. Gigabytes of data! Of course that's not portable. It's a competition between on-the-fly character customization and figure optimization. Customization wins in Dazland.

To make it work in a streamlined way, you probably need a 2-stage character creation process. In the first stage, you make the character the way you want. In the second stage, you freeze, bake, and save all that into a single morph that gets bound to the rigging. After that, no more customizing. If you want to customize further, you make another figure. The effect of doing that is, you need a lot less data to support your finished figure. You're no longer carrying, checking and manipulating the data for every figure and morph pack in your library.

It seems that's what happens with metahumans. You do the customization and then you get your actual figure. Now, the big difference with metahumans is, you do the design in their web app. You don't actually get direct access to the source materials. You get a finished product you can drop into UE. And it's not clear that we end users can extend that asset like we can the Daz, Poser or Iclone figures. Those are important considerations!

For Daz, their base figures and morphs are their bread and butter; and we already downloaded them in the essentials pack. Daz has an existential obligation to protect their figures as best they can, even though it's already been pirated in places beyond their control. Reallusion has the same problems. I think Daz figures changed over time to meet the company's goals of increased realism, better posing, etc. Doing that increased figure complexity while reducing interoperability with other programs. It's win-win for them. What's interesting is, the poly count of the base figures actually decreased over time. Reliance on subdivision increased.

I'm not really trying to defend Daz in this. I'm trying to point out that maybe there are reasons things are the way they are. And I agree that some of what happens with respect to all that is troubling and troublesome.

you've nailed it in the trade-offs department. most of us struggle with those very time/brains/content adjustments/costs issues as well, which is why I envy those with a mastery of a good home-base tool and can use other tools to enhance that foundation.

so much power, but so many apps, buttons, menus and paradigms (and shopping cart$, heh). It's a good thing I enjoy the road as much as the render - usually...

--ms

No CC3 for me yet, as I'm probably overly cautious to pick another 3D silo that has a lot of the same agenda alignment and resulting odor of the DAZ >eco-system in the >air. It still may prove to be the right path,

In all honesty Reallusion continues to do a very poor job of Clearly describing their product line to anyone who does not literally visit their forums and describe their individual objectives and ask what products they should buy. and even then, it is not a cheap proposition for most.

If you plan to migrate completely away from Daz studio for Character animation & rendering, it will require a minimum $400 USD investment in Iclone basic($199) and CC3 pipeline($199)

This would give you the widest range of future options to convert ALL pre genesis 8.1 characters & clothing/hairs into Iclone native avatars as well as Export presets to Blender, Maya,C4D and the two major game engines.

The native Iclone render engine is rubbish unless you buy the same Slow brute force path tracer IRay plugin that Daz uses.

Hence all of the figure export options from CC3 pipeline

I export animated figures to Blender via a free Addon that auto converts the material to Blender shader nodes

If you have any intention of using Iclone as animation tool for export back to Daz studio/IRay you will have to Buy the more expensive pipeline version of Iclone($500+IIRC) and be limited to only retargeted BVH body motions exported back to Daz studio for G1-G8

Any facial animation will have to be done with one of the many Daz studio options (face mojo-$295,Anilip2-$90, mimic live-$60).

Face mojo is the best but requires an Iphone 10 or higher($$$???) and the plugin itself cost more than CC3 pipeline for full G3 & G8 support.

No other iclone Content(meshes etc) are exportable back to Daz Studio.

If you have No immediate interests in Character animation/ CG filmaking or exporting animated Characters to the major 3DCC's /Game engines you should stay out of the Reallusion Eco system.

Frankly it offers nothing for still renders/portaits that one cannot get in Daz studio/poser for far,far less money.

I don't share Wolf's issue with the sexy ladies. I like them a lot. I like >the >male figures, too. I have a lot more ladies in my library than men.

Historically the use of you sexy (mostly european) women to sell products ha been very succesfull.

I have no "issue" with that reality

The problem arises when your entire brand is only associated with. "pin up" girls you will have a very hard time expanding your user base beyond that user Demographic.

Particulary to Corporate & educational institutions where a images of a bikini girls etc is tantmount to "harrasment" in many cases.

Poser never accomplished such an expansion and where does poser rank in the general arena of 3D/CG applications today??

The Epic Metahumans demos have been very shrewd to avoid showcasing Young, white bikini /naked women and that is no accident, of that I am certain.!!

Also everyone has pretty, young ,girls now .

Daz users can croon about JCMs and HD morphs all they want, but you have to work within Daz studio to fully access those features.

Staying within Daz studio is just not an option for those needing Realtime viewport Display (EEVEE.UE4,unity Iclone). or professional animation tools.

Thanks Mindsong! I think you're right about having a base app. Very wise!

I hear you, Wolf. It sounds to me like both Reallusion and Daz have marketing problems. But neither of those are my problem. Re: Daz: I have figures of many ethnicities. HD morphs are only one solution for surface detail and JCMs don't completely relieve the need for custom fit solutions. Not all of us want to animate. There are a fair number of us who stick with 3Delight and the older figures. Not to say I'll always do that or that what we're doing is actually better; but it's working for me for now. It's good to know that Reallusion gives good export capability through G8. That may be useful in the future.

God I hate the DAZ moderation team. ?

They finally locked the NFT dumpster fire thread.?

Elon Musk hath Spoken ?‍♀️?‍♂️

wendyvainity posted at 12:37PM Thu, 13 May 2021 - #4419090

Elon Musk hath Spoken ?‍♀️?‍♂️

Yep speculation about the intentions of those rich elites is fine.....start mentioning names???....poof!!!

I'm surprised that thread lasted as long as it did!

DAZ itself I obviously do not hate or I would not be still chucking money at them to follow the tens of thousands I already have.

I dislike their eponymous program Studio but use it when I have to.

I am distraught about their treatment of Carrara.

The forum is like a Housing Estate, the neighbours are great the HOA/ corporate body or whatever the mods represent sucks.

grumble wasted another week of my life trying to get general rigged clothes working in carrara without opening ds. kicker is the poser import has a convert skinning option

it could be as simple as a typo

in spite of my resolve, I did post a couple of times in that forum, waste of time due to the no bump issue, others posted afterwards and I am ignored, not that I am trying to be an attention whore but with the recent post filter it only goes to the next one added since someone last read and most will not bother to scroll up. If I am bumped off by a new page most will never see anything I add, better off replying to YouTube videos, I cop a lot of flack there! One was salty because my stupid comment on one got over a thousand likes, I had no idea that was a thing. ?

Now Tafi their parent company is partnering with Amazon Lumberyard, I would have posted about this in the industry news thread but that seems rather dead.

Of course they are! As Amazon is among the most evil of the evil, a hand-chosen winner of the Pandemic, I do my best not to touch anything to do with them. Sadly, Rendo runs on AWS. It goes to show, you can't escape the vile reach of monopolistic organizations.

with the new non fungibles too I am wondering if they are deliberately trying to alienate themselves from the digital hobbyist market altogether.

Neglecting Carrara, moving away from Poser support is one thing but now they are kicking their DAZ studio devotees to the curb too.

Coupled with the Nvidia driven hardware requirements then embracing the thing that keeps said hardware out of their users reach, someone wants to quickly line their pockets before bankrupting the company.

Not sure, Wendy. Stranger things have happened, but I have a hard time believing that's what Daz company really wants to do. The NFTs appear to be a pet project of one or more executives. The Carrara neglect is likely due to cost/benefit analysis compounded by passage of time. I suppose the ongoing development of DS will tell more than anything. You could be right, and that would be terrible.

Daz can pursue this NFT/Crypto scheme because they have very little to worry about alienating the hobbiest /still render market....and why would they??

Poser is on full life support largey funded by selling Daz Genesis 8 female products in the RMP. but it cost $200 USD with no true ,Full genesis supportand LF&LH are not viable alternatives to genesis.

The still render hobbiests will continue to buy from Daz despite the canting screeds posted ,in the Forums, against NFT and Daz's association with them... LOL!!! background noise on the plantation.

Sure a small few will use Blender( via the bridge plugins) but only for Cycles as an alternative to NIVIDA Iray ...for stills to render Daz content they buy from the Daz store

And Iclone/CC3 pipeline requires a combined minimum $400 USD buy-in to "transform" genesis figures and clothing into CC3 avatars. And you lose your precious HD morphs /JCMs and have a crap render engine that cannot even do screen space reflections unless you $$$Buy a plugin$$ to use the very same IRay engine Daz studio includes at ZERO cost.

The serious animators like TimVining( Star Trek Aurora) have already left so Daz need not bother getting serious about a proper IK system in Daz studio.

UE 4/5 with the meta-humans is too complicated for the average DS user with notable exceptions Like Wendy who is on a soft ban from community participation.

So yeah I would Say Daz inc is in a pretty safe position right now.

Okay. So first of all, Wolf, you don't know what people are spending or not spending. I've observed the exit of some historically spendy regulars for various reasons over the last few months. I know they spent because over time, they've talked about what they've purchased and how much they've spent. I have no reason to think they're lying. I also tend to believe the people who have said they've stopped spending because of the NFTs. I've had enough contact with them in the forum to conclude they're people of generally good character and likely doing exactly what they say. Until someone can prove otherwise, there's no reason to doubt them, let alone cast aspersions the way you are now.

Second of all, you have no idea how Poser is doing under Bondware's ownership. Neither do I. As I haven't bought or used recent Poser, there is a lot I can't/won't say about that. In the same way, the reallusion products look interesting, but I have not spent money on them, either. So I have no opinion. But I do detect you looking down on DS users again, as if you're somehow better. It's apparently a habit with you. I've seen it many times now.

What you say about DS users is not universally true. Your verbiage reflects poorly on you and frankly erodes my respect for you. Perhaps that makes no difference, but I'm asking you to understand that lots of people use DS for lots of reasons, the same way people use Poser, Reallusion products, Blender, 3DS Max or any other program you care to name. And the people using DS have skills ranging from none to great, same as with any other program.

Finally, your conclusion about Daz company is based on nothing. Daz is a privately held company. Their financials are not public knowledge. They could be well off, or they could be in dire straits. Either way, we don't know. And that's all any of us can say about it. Until something else happens to provide any information, it's all guessing.

Okay. So first of all, Wolf, you don't know what people are spending or not spending. I've observed the exit of some historically spendy regulars for various reasons over the last few months. I know they spent because over time, they've talked about what they've purchased and how >much they've spent. I have no reason to think they're >lying.

And neither of use have any way of knowing who is spending what so any assumption that Daz is somehow in trouble is ,based on a a few highly vocal forum regulars expressing outrage, is a foolish assumption as they dont represent an accurate sampling of the total Daz content buying population.

Second of all, you have no idea how Poser is doing under >Bondware's ownership. Neither do I. As I haven't bought >or used recent Poser,

I have a pretty good idea of how much Daz genesis female products I see in the Renderosity store verses Lefemme or the others.

Those products produce revenue that supports the continued existence of poser.

In the same way, the reallusion products look interesting, >but I have not spent money on them, either. So I have no >opinion.

There are only two reason you have not spent any money on Reallusion products.

The entry cost is too high (certainly understandable in these times)

Or you can afford them but your cost benefit analysis has determined that the reallusion products do not offer you anything that will be useful in your current artistic endeavors (stills) compared to whatever software you already own(Daz studio or Blender)

consumers make such rational decisions every day ..nothing complicated here.

Now..Ask yourself honestly WHY you have not seen fit to purchase any recent version of poser or invest in the Poser native eco system of figures & content.

But I do detect you looking down on DS users again, as >if you're somehow better. It's apparently a habit with you. >I've seen it many times now.

My opinion of DS user is based on years of pattern recognition&observation if my opinion hurts your feelings, please put me on ignore and get on with your life.

Finally, your conclusion about Daz company is based on >nothing.

My conclusions about Daz's postion in its market space is based on comparing its feature set& cost of entry to it next nearest competitors.

On balance Daz has never broken out if its little sandbox since genesis one.

I move in proffessional 3D/CG circles/communities and this is a fact. you not see any mention of the bridge/export plugins in any of the major online communitys outside of the Daz site.

Daz still makes great looking figures and content that only realizes it full potential inside Daz studio with Iray and that is fine as their core user base has made it clear that they are going to continue to buy... so good for Daz!!!

I do use DAZ studio too BTW and do animations with it. It has it's challenges though. I don't actually hate DAZ though just the current Executive decisions to sell NFTs and the lack of development for Carrara. Hate is reserved for the forum Moderation team, I don't like hating but their actions are very hateful and worthy of the emotion, I don't wish them any ill will outside of their job there though.

Wow, Wolf. To think I once thought you were kinda cool. Thanks for setting the record straight.