Hi DAZ people. I see you get a lot of requests (and demands) for help in these forums, which you might agree isn't really the best place for them. It seems like a lot of Poser newbies (and non-newbies who may not have depth of technical ingenuity) can't figure out how to do some things that many of us take for granted. Conversion of .jpg bump maps to .bum, parenting, applying trans maps, basic stuff like that. I think you might be able to cut down on the load of "something's wrong" or "how do I...?" e-mails which Anton mentioned being inundated with. There are probably several ways to do this. You have the fantastic Arcana site, now. Perhaps someone could write up some new pages, both general and product-specific, which tell people in detail how to use your products. The fact is, many of your ReadMe files don't fully indicate everything that users of various versions of Poser must do to get the products to work correctly. Or, as in the case of the Millennium Dragon, they do, but people either don't read the ReadMe or read it too quickly, then forget. There have been times when I've been temped to write HTML tutorials for fellow newbies after I figured things out. For example, I recently purchased the Millennium Beard, and found some cool ways to make the beard conform perfectly to Michael's face after it's been morphed to create a character. DAZ made this possible, but the ReadMe isn't quite as robust as it could have been. Some users might not be able to figure things like that out on their own. It took me awhile to get DragonFolk to work correctly, too, and at the time I wanted to share what I'd figured out. I didn't write my webpages because I was too busy at school, but also because I wasn't sure if I should be doing that regarding your products. Anyway, my point is that if there were some helpful tutorial pages for some of your products which seem to get people confused (Vicky's pony tail hair also comes to mind,) you could then refer inquirers to those URLs rather than taking more of Reba's or whomever's time to answer the same old basic questions over and over. Only you would know, but it seems to me that the time and money invested in creating a few such pages would come back to you in time saved re: customer service. I'm not trying to tell you your business, just making a suggestion as food for thought. The more people are empowered to help themselves, hopefully, the more they will. My other thought is that posting "help me!" messages for DAZ or Curious Labs or whomever in this forum isn't really the right thing to do. It won't necessarily yield a faster response, and it sort of looks like you're trying to pressure them via embarrassment, even if you're not. If there's a question regarding their products and you want help from fellow members, cool, but we can't expect representitives of these companies to scan all these threads for individuals with needs better addressed directly to the companies. If indeed they fail to respond within a few business days, I'm frankly not sure what the best thing to do would be. I'd try phone numbers. But in my experience DAZ has always answered within 24 hours during the business week.

Great ideas. There are a lot of tutorials here, but not necessarily what everyone is specifically looking for. Some of them are for advanced users. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do tutorials on the DAZ products. I don't think they would mind at all. I can't see that there's a copyright issue there, since you're merely helping others understand how to use them. We used to have Ron Knights, who did a lot of very helpful tutorials, but he seems to have disappeared, and I don't know how to find his site. Geep has some very entertaining illustrated tutorials. I used to have a few on my site, but I've recently revamped it and I've removed them for space reasons. I think the more info there is, especially for beginner Poser users, the better. I say, if you have the time, go for it! Melanie

Attached Link: His site

Attached Link: DAZ Tech Support Site

Most of these are Poser-specific, and some change per version, and should actually be directed at CL.

The tutorials on DAZ-specific figures could be done; especially if the readme is good enough and is converted to HTML. There are quite a few on the TS site; including some of the ones you mentioned like two on the Millennium Beard.

I think one thing that could help DAZ (or anyone, actually) is - instead of having a mailto link to contact TS by mail - create a form and classify e-mails by product and/or category. That should, at least, get e-mails going to the correct place and/or allow them to be prioritized. If there is a DB backend used, then they could study trends and place the appropriate information up on the site. Also, they could use auto-responders based off the classification with the FAQ for whatever was selected and provide something while the user is waiting for a more formal response.

Freeform e-mails will always be more difficult to handle than those that are somewhat structured.

"I didn't write my webpages because I was too busy at school, but also because I wasn't sure if I should be doing that regarding your products."

I do not think that anyone would balk at you for creating helpful tutorials on their products based off your experiences. In fact, since it would free up their resources, I am sure they would rather have it that way so the staff could concentrate on other business.

It's true about documentation. I like it and wish others would pursue it more. There are lots of products here (and other places) that assume everyone knows all the ins and outs of Poser. I have suggested excellent documentation would put a product a notch above other products. IF I had the ability to model stuff and make MATs, etc., I SURELY would try to make my stuff stand out a bit from the crowd. After all, if my product was average or good, having detailed instructions on its usage would probably result in the product being appreciated moreso than if the person had purchased a really NICE product but had trouble using it. DAZ already has the great "click it" installation. And even great products. And, a lot of documentation on their site. But you can see all the questions V3 created. I suppose a lot of what I read was due to people NOT reading as much as was supplied. Which is indicative of what I am used to since I work in the IT support field. However, whether people read it or not, documentation is one of those items which makes one's product stand above the rest. After all, we never really hear from those people who read the documentation and got everything working as it should, do we?

"After all, we never really hear from those people who read the documentation and got everything working as it should, do we?" In a word - probably! ;0) Those who assist have probably read the supporting documentation at least enough to provide the help or know where to find the information to point them to.

The doctor on Star Trek replies -"But Dammit Jim, I'm a Digital Artist, not a writer" Good idea, otherwise! ;-)

xoconostle
You make an excellent point. Trying to keep up with the ins and outs of these products can be quite taxing. Myself, I find I spend more time going through the forums, cutting and pasting information that I realize I need to know because there is no way I can remember all this stuff and no where else to go where it's all laid out. Yes there are tutorial sites here and there, but if not for scouring the forums and reading of someone's problem and, subsequently, someone's reply which often tells you where you might find an answer, I'd be lost. But again that means scouring the forums, coming back to messages that weren't originally resolved but may be at a later posting. Sometimes a visit here leaves me exhausted and when I'm done I'm too tired, mentally to even apply the information from a given days postings. My thanks to anyone out there who has a tutorial site or knows the answer to a question. But it's true there's more to getting the full potential out of these products than in the read-mes and a section devoted to tutorials etc. by the maker of the products, who by the way, know a whole lot more about what can be done with them would be a tremendous help. Additionally, it would free up time to actually use these products rather than scouring the web looking for instructions how to. I hope DAZ gives serious consideration to your ideas.

Thanks again

Please do it :) DAZ and all the other producers of Poser content would benefit hugely. When I think of the amount of time I waste struggling with some of the more complex products (instead of creating with them!), I could weep. My files are full of models that I just couldn't get to work right and couldn't find workarounds for, either. Some of us are just not as intuitively tech-savvy as the movers and shakers in the field, but our heads are just as filled with images that are trying hard to get out. Which leads to real frustration when, as petereed said above, we log hours upon hours doing searches here and plowing through the humongous pile of messages to find out how to make some thrice-cursed hair figure or confusing new model work....! Product-specific tutorials are desperately needed by alot of us. More and more often lately, I'm resorting to emailing the authors rather than wasting whole days trying to get something to work. The folks who create for us are often light-years beyond their customers in tech know-how---what is transparently simple to them is frequently utterly obtuse to the average user. So YES any product-specific tutes you can come up with will be gratefully received by a whole lot of people who just plain loathe spending their precious art time on anything but art ;)

We are working on a new version of Arcana. More info about that will appear soon.

Beginners who take my Poser class don't post beginner type questions anywhere. They don't have to. But can't say more 'cause it costs about the same as a vicky outfit so isn't appropriate here. Don't think I've ever even mentioned it before.

Thanks for the great and thoughtful responses, all! Frankly I hadn't checked Arcana thoroughly, and didn't realize that there's some MilBeard info there. I'll have some free time in about a week and will try to write up some basic tuts on things I have in mind. It'll be newbie stuff, not Dr. Geep-level, but maybe helpful to someone. Thanks for the encouragement. Anton, looking forward to the revamp!