I thought that this was the thing that paid their rent and was their biggest selling item so why are they giving it away now? Is there some catch??? Just wondering K

JHFC! There ain't a catch. Just download the damn thing and enjoy.

gee wiz these people are just sending in batting practice fastballs, i could hit that one into McCovey Cove! I found a morph for the shoulders in RDNA today, trying it out when I get a chance. I found out that the Mill Morphing product does not solve the issue. I also did some render time trials on V3 vs Judy today. Of course there is a hit, but its not as if she cost double or anything. I also was told how to take any/all V3 textures and move them into V2/EJ. It's all very interesting. ::::: Opera :::::

keep in mind you still have to by the morphs to make or use any characters. it is only the base which has basic emotions and such, but no shaping morphs. The base by itself is still usable, just not very versital. V3 may be the one thing they sale to more people than any other item, but i bet they get more from brokered items than their main figures.

I thought that this was the thing that paid their rent With poser product, you only buy something once. for V3 or any base character "pay the rent" (which comes every month) you would have to find a constant supply of new customers who dont have V3. As it is DAZ pays the rent off of a constant supply of new product (brokered and their own) with a varying but relativly stable customer base. i think they are operating on the premis that getting the base figure has always been an impedament for some people. they could never make the investment to get in the door. once past that investment you could buy constant supply of 5,10, 15 dollar items (the stuff that is paying the rent) Giving away the base make it easier for people to get in the door to buy the less expensive items.

It's business :)

Well, let's see. They give away the base for free, then you maybe buy the morph packs, some clothes, some characters, some textures..... It's call a "loss leader" and it works very well. You give away the thing that's needed to use your other products, in the expectation that people will then go on to buy and use your other products. ;-) bonni

Think printer ink!

Did someone miss thier medication? Free Vicky, Free Mike, and all others that are held in oppression. :)

Printer ink.. OOO that makes me SO mad!

Speaking of printer ink, I keep wondering why my photo-magenta runs out even though I only print in black in white... V3 and M3 for free is like drugs - you give them a sample or an entry product to get them hooked, then they come back for more. Now that every Poser user has no excuse other than preference to not have V3 and M3, sales of clothes, morphs, and other things for those figures will go up significantly, and sales of rival figures (already likely low by comparrison) will go down even more. For DAZ, it is a smart move as long as people go to them to get those add ons, or even to get a notable portion of their add ons. But even if you buy an add on from renderosity instead, the person who sold it to you is likely to then take that money and use it to buy something from DAZ... so any chain of feeding will probably work out well for them, as long as it remains active.

V3 and M3 sales have probably reached a saturation point for the base models. Giving them away encourages people to buy the textures, cloths, and morphs that go with them. Most everyone who could afford (and want) V3 and M3 probably bought them already. Daz is picking up new customers from budget minded people and holdouts who refused to pay for both morphs and base models. One thing not mentioned in most of these threads is that the morph packages are on sale too (15%). It makes it even more attractive for people. It's actually a very good idea, business-wise. I wish they were a public company. I'd buy their stock.

Uh... the base figures are free. The morphs and textures to make the figures usable for artwork still need to be paid for. Of course, now that I think of it there are a lot of nude unmorphed Vicki's in the gallery...

"keep in mind you still have to by the morphs to make or use any characters." and "The morphs and textures to make the figures usable for artwork still need to be paid for." You guys don't spend much time viewing the galleries do ya? :P Textures you can get for free from right here at Rendorosity, and morphs.. well I just wish people would learn to use them.. Maybe then there would at least be some diversity in those nude vicky pictures. I don't see many Free figures that come with morphs, textures and clothing. In fact.. I can't think of ANY that do off hand. Why are they doing it? Well their statement was that it would help bring more people into the Posering world, which is a good likelyhood, with free figures, free software to use them in, free textures here and there, free clothing here and there,... The only reason not to toy with it is a complete lack of interest.

Attached Link: DAZ Announcement

looniper: Lets see, figures with textures and clothing...Hmmm, have you tried Sixus1's figures at poserfreebies.com or MayaDoll at StudioMaya? There are some really good free textures for M3/V3 and some not so good free ones. A lot of the high res stuff is for sale here and at DAZ amongst other stores. I glance in the gallery from time to time. And yes, there are a lot of images in the gallery that have unmorphed or minimally morphed Vicki's and Mike 3's (the face at least).

You refering to H.E.R. and HIM? Maybe I'm dilusional(all that food over the holidays does that to me sometimes) but they don't come with any clothing do they. Not being argumentative, I really may be wrong. I don't have either installed at present to check. My point was that saying you have to buy the clothes, morphs and textures isn't really being truthful, since finding free versions of all of these is easier for V3/M3 than any other figure due to their popularity.

Actually they are in cahoots with the Internet Police and several other dark entities on the net. Inside these 'free' base characters they have placed a small spywear called "DAZ K.N.O.W.S U". Once the character is installed it sets about the task of collecting every bit of information on you and sending it to a secret data base where it is sold on the Black Market, for a sizable profit. Also while you sleep the characters are programed to emerge from your computer and whisper subliminal messages in your ear; "Buy more stuff...Buy more stuff...Kill your boss...Buy more stuff". You know they old saying: "Nothing is for Free"

arcady; as for you Magenta ink, unless you select 'Black Only' then a standard printer will mix other colors to 'create black' and only substitute some black to create "pure black". So that explains why a color printer uses colored ink even when you are printing only black and white documents - you are still in "Full Color Mode" and not "Black Only Mode". (haha, you thought I'd have another consperacy theory didn't ya!!?) note: valued DAZ customer since they emerged from Zygote so don't start calling me a "DAZ Basher", if I was I wouldn't have such a long purchase history with them ;p ..people here have no sense of humor...

The feeling I'm getting is that they are paving the way for V4 and M4. I may be wrong.....it's just a feeling. If they are, they could be cool depending on what improvements are made, but right now, I have no idea how I'd fund clothing, props, etc., for a set of new characters. I also feel that V3 still has a great deal of value and use ahead of her. But as I said, I may be wrong.

Bingo ariannah! Thou hast bludgeoned the bodger on the bonce! Push the sales of V3/M3 add-ons before news or rumour of V4/M4's pending release breaks and people start saving their ningys and trigannic pyus to buy them.

Hmmm. The flat isn't big enough to be saving any trigannic pyus just now. I don't think that there will be a 4th generation for at least another year. There are still products to be gotten from the old unimesh - they have only just released Aiko and the first of this round of Mil Kids and there is plenty of scope to complete the family. DAZ is rightly focusing on growing their customer base, the free studio and base figures (which include Aiko) are an excellent strategy for that. If a new range is launched too soon into this initiative, people will be put off and it will fail! Prospects for a new generation of figures has been limited by the capabilities of the Poser rigging. Whatever DAZ produce, it has to be compatible with their studio (at least with release 1) which has opted for that same rigging. There are no real advatages in increased resolution at this time and so the scope for a generation of P4 based figures that better previous generations in the way that the current one has, is limited. I gather that Curious Labs are not making major changes to rigging in Poser 6 - but they will have to by version 7. I would expect to see something then, along with release 2 of DAZ Studio.

I think they had such a good result with selling Aiko 3 stuff after giving away the base figure they realized this was a good business model. The Aiko giveaway could have been a conscious testing of the market.

Case closed. :] Fish

Lesee...Free Aiko, Free V3 & M3, Free Daz Studio... Methinks they're setting themselves up to take over the world..MUAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA ;)

When someone offers great models for free, I don't ask questions, I grab them. And at DAZ in particular, I grab them FAST before they change their minds... like they did for Sara that we had so much trouble keeping there last Summer. ;o) France

Yes, there is no catch. You have to buy the morphs to use them but there is a simple free solution there, just don`t use v3 and m3. It would be nice to see less threads complaining about stuff.

xantor, just to be clear (on my above reply), I'm not complaining. Free is always welcome. It's just something I've wondered and could easily see happening. Nothing more, and most definitely not a complaint from me especially as it affords others a chance to experience working with these models and I now have $40.00 bucks to spend due to the rebates I received. ;)

They did it so folkes at Rendersoity could write messages about hidden underlying plots! ;-) While you will need textures and maybe morphs, you don't have to buy 'em form DAZ, and they don't get a cut on Renderosity or PoserPro sales. arcady- actually, there are no little float bowls to read the ink level in your printer, what the printer driver does is take a little off every time you turn the printer on, if you run out you can often just remove and replace the cartridge (or just tell the driver you have replaced it) and suddenly it is full again. I don't think DAZ is following the Gillette model (give away the razor, make your money on the blades), but the Inkjet companies surely are. ;-) I actually think they are giving away V3 for exactly the reason they said!

ariannah it was not your post I was complaining about.

xantor, cool and thanks.

Get a Poserworld lifetime subscription. Between Poserworld and Freestuff you don't need to buy anything else for V3/M3 ever again.

The catch will be, by the time you all buy up everything for V3 & M3 they will have discontinued those models to pave way for their newer versions.

If you're really determined to not spend money, Poser has magnets with which you can reshape V3 and M3 all you want for free. So where's the catch now?

Hmm, just reading through this thread I had a thought. When the 4th gen figures are released, will the bases be free? If so, will there be upgrade pricing only on morphs for them? Or will the bases have to be paid for, and if so, how would they determine upgrade pricing from a freebie? No conspiracy theories, just curiousity on how this will affect their future business model.

I am wondering too when I read this thread... why is it that each time DAZ makes a move, it is discussed here instead of in DAZ forums? When someone has a question about DAZ activities, wouldn't DAZ forums be the right place to ask these questions? France

Daz came here and made a grand announcement at the top of a thread. All of their customers post here and discuss their products to exhaustion. They do not answer objections to their products. Are those enough reaons? ::::: Opera :::::

They do not answer objections to their products... You mean in their forums? Or here? Or nowhere? ;o) I was just curious, you know, didn't want to offend anyone. France

When someone has a question about DAZ activities, wouldn't DAZ forums be the right place to ask these questions? Officialy DAZ (the people making the business decisions) do not read the DAZ forums. if you want to talk to someone who has the answers you must email or call DAZ. DAZ forums have moderators (most of whom are not located at DAZ) that can call someones attention (via email, just like you could) to a thread, that would be the closest thing you could get to "direct" support from DAZ on DAZ forums.

IMHO, I'm sure folks like me were precisely their target:

-Never bought V3

-So, naturally, I was not buying, creating, or sharing any items for their premier product.

-Had really also stopped buying any new stuff for V2 & M2 a while back (not nearly as much new stuff coming out these days) and was just grabbing FreeStuff.

-Got free V3/M3 and immediately opened wallet and bought morph Pak - first purchase from DAZ in more than a year -- dollars that I otherwise had no intention of spending on 3D, so, they did not end up merely robbing Peter to pay Paul, it really was otherwise lost dollars and a dormant customer reclaimed.

(and Im sure that little bit of testimony just made some marketing folks day, I now envision them happy-dancing about going Bingo! Just as we predicted!!)

And, of course, if they do have plans for 4th generation Millennium figures, it would seem to make sense to have a "clearance" period on the 3rd generation stuff, as sales of these items will undoubtedly sharply decline after the release of any newer figures.

No complaints here, and don't see any catch. Looks like a Win-Win to me. Thanks DAZ good call!

Now, if only CL would follow suit and devise a similar scheme to weasel us laggers into P5.....

Many people here don't read the DAZ forums.

"Now, if only CL would follow suit and devise a similar scheme to weasel us laggers into P5..... " I'd gotten an email from CL last month offering a $50 off $100 order coupon if I registered with them. I did and just yesterday used it to order the P5 upgrade. Unfortunately the offer for the coupon expired 12/27/04, but the coupon itself was good until June. Not free, but did save me a few bucks.